Office of Minority Health

State Partnership Grant Program to Improve Minority Health

Grantee

Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
Baltimore, MD 21201
Project: Statewide Training on the New National CLAS Standards
Amount: $150,000
The Maryland Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities was established to advocate for and provide assistance to the secretary of Health and Mental Hygiene in reducing health disparities and improving the overall health of minority populations.

Project Abstract

The purpose of the project is to offer training and promote adoption of the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care (The National CLAS Standards). The project will provide training to selected health care organizations and will provide tools to these organizations to educate their patients and consumers regarding how the National CLAS Standards improve access and use of health services. In addition, the project will train selected consumers regarding what they should expect from those selected organizations. The project is central to the state’s health reform and Affordable Care Act initiatives. The project intends to target uninsured minority populations and individuals who revolve through emergency departments.

Expected outcomes include:

• Increased awareness of the need to systematically increase cultural, linguistic and health literacy in the state’s health workforce and health care delivery organizations
• Integration of cultural, linguistic and health literacy competence principles into policies, procedures and quality improvement initiatives within health care organizations
• Increased capacity among health care delivery organizations to educate minority consumers about cultural and linguistic services that are available to them

Performance measures include:

• Develop a training toolkit and guide for targeted health care delivery organizations
• Assess knowledge and intent of the 20 targeted health care delivery sites to adopt and implement the National CLAS Standards
• Increase the adoption of the National CLAS Standards by 10 percent each year among the 20 targeted health care delivery organizations
• Develop consumer education materials and pilot test them in the Minority Outreach and Technical Assistance local disparities program
• Ensure that 50 percent of the 20 target health care delivery organizations will have each provided one or more community education sessions on the National CLAS Standards by June 30, 2015

Data will be collected using organizational assessment tools, a post-intervention assessment tool and post-training assessments.