Mitigating healthcare disparities: Strategies for achieving cultural competency

byMario Anglada, CEO, Hoy Health 

Health and healthcare disparities -- a higher burden of illness, injury, disability or mortality experienced by one group relative to another -- occur across race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, location, gender, disability status and sexual orientation.

Minority groups are also at risk of being uninsured and, without access to care, face worse health outcomes. For example, Hispanics have the highest uninsured rates of any racial or ethnic group within the United States. In 2015, 19.5 percent of the Hispanic population was not covered by health insurance, as compared to 6.3 percent of the non-Hispanic white population. Experts predict that people of color will account for over half of the U.S. population in 2050, with the largest growth occurring among Hispanics.

A recent analysis estimated that disparities amount to approximately $93 billion in excess medical care costs and $42 billion in lost productivity per year, as well as economic losses from premature deaths.

As the nation’s population becomes increasingly diverse, addressing this issue has become a critical challenge for many physicians who can play an important role in delivering culturally relevant services that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients. f your organization hasn’t already, now is the time to act and tap the many programs and resources that are available.

Strategies to achieve cultural competency in healthcare

The goal of culturally competent healthcare services is to provide the highest quality of care to every patient, regardless of race, ethnicity, cultural background, English proficiency or literacy.

Some common strategies for improving the patient-provider interaction and institutionalizing changes in the healthcare system include:

· providing interpreter services

· recruiting and retaining minority staff

· providing training to increase cultural awareness, knowledge and skills. Linguistic competency should also go beyond the clinical setting to encompass appointment making, advice lines, medical billing and other written materials.

When it comes to healthcare and compliance, proper communication plays a significant role in diagnosis, treatment and meeting patient needs. If Spanish or any other foreign language is the patient’s preferred or only language, it is the physician’s responsibility to have a bilingual staff member, or a trained translator available. Without it the patient is at greater risk.

When possible, healthcare providers should also enlist the help of community health workers, incorporate culture-specific attitudes and values into health promotion tools and include family and members in healthcare decision making.

Physicians can also extend their reach beyond the care setting by urging patients to adopt healthcare technology aimed at reducing barriers to culturally relevant care and enabling underserved families to help each other access the care they need, no matter where they are located and without an insurance intermediary.

Technology solutions for underserved populations

Proven technology is being used to leverage decades of health industry knowledge and speed access to care among, for example, Hispanic communities, who can now access several cash-based primary care and pharmacy solutions, such as:

· A medication voucher program that gives consumers the ability to pre-purchase generic medications at affordable price points. They can be purchased for personal use or gifted to a friend or family member either domestically in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, or internationally.

· A free prescription savings card model allows cash-pay consumers to save a significant percent on brand name and generic medications across a wide network of pharmacies.

· An end-to-end clinical solution for patients with diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and obesity that includes vouchers for medications, peripherals, testing supplies, tablet, apps, and access to lifestyle coach consults.

· A bilingual telemedicine platform, which helps underserved populations access the healthcare they need with more ease.

Solutions such as these are drastically simplifying access and delivery of quality health and wellness products, and enabling individuals to access care, learn about their health, determine their wellness needs, access low cost medications, manage their chronic conditions and engage in behavior modification solutions to help them lead healthier and more productive lives.

While this issue remains a persistent challenge across the U.S. healthcare system, addressing disparities in health and healthcare is not only important in terms of social justice, but also for improving the health of all Americans by improving overall quality of care and population health.