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Understanding how organizations use the national CLAS standards

Think Cultural Health

11/28/2016

For the past year, we have been examining the ways in which different health and health care organizations provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS) and implement the National CLAS Standards. Thirteen organizations around the country – including hospitals, public health departments, ambulatory care centers, and clinics – participated in this project. The Think Cultural Health team interviewed 44 organizational leaders, collected surveys from 1202 staff members, reviewed 13 organizational websites, and visited 4 organizations in person to observe CLAS-related activities. Here’s what we learned:
                          
How are some health and health care organizations implementing the National CLAS Standards? 
 
  • By providing comprehensive language assistance services to those served
  • By offering specialized training to the workforce (for example, on CLAS or the Standards)
  • By completing organizational self-assessments to inform needs and gaps in the provision of CLAS
  • By providing compensation to staff to complete CLAS-related training
 

What helped these organizations implement the Standards?

  • Leadership support for implementation
  • An organizational culture that supports implementation
  • Identification of CLAS champions inside and outside of the organization
 
What changes have leadership and staff at these organizations observed as a result of implementing the Standards? 

  • Communication with populations served
  • Improved ability to address and consider the cultural and linguistic characteristics of populations served
  • Increased cultural and linguistic competency of staff
  • Better organizational capacity to provide care/services to more individuals
  • Better patient experience

We sincerely thank the 13 organizations that participated in this project, as these findings have helped the Think Cultural Health team better understand implementation strategies, facilitators, benefits, and roadblocks to implementing the Standards in health and health care organizations. We ultimately hope to use the findings to develop additional resources to guide and support organizations’ awareness, knowledge, and use of the Standards. In the meantime, we invite you to download the National CLAS Standards and The Blueprint, a comprehensive implementation guide for the Standards, to learn about CLAS implementation strategies.