Hospitals in pursuit of excellence

Integrating Cultural Competency into Population Health Initiatives

New York-Presbyterian Hospital
New York, NY
2,264 Beds

The Problem
New York-Presbyterian Hospital’s Columbia University Medical Center campus serves a predominately Hispanic community with high rates of asthma, diabetes, heart disease and depression. Recognizing that health disparities and gaps in care coordination existed in this community, New York-Presbyterian Hospital developed a strategy to improve clinical care coordination, increase cultural competency among providers and introduce integrated information systems across sites of care.

The Solution
New York-Presbyterian Hospital established the Regional Health Collaborative to improve care coordination and cultural competency through four main strategies: (1) implementation of seven National Committee for Quality Assurance-designated patient-centered medical homes focused on diabetes, congestive heart failure, asthma and depression, (2) centralization of call center functions such as scheduling, test results and follow-up information for all seven sites, (3) employment of bilingual and bicultural community health workers and navigators in the medical homes and emergency departments and (4) implementation of a four-hour training program to build a workforce that can better address the linguistic, cultural and health literacy needs of the community. Physicians also receive training with patient-based cross-cultural care, which assists with cultural competency and communication with patients and families. This training helps physicians become more aware of their patients’ perspectives in addition to their own.

The Result
As of May 2011, approximately 600 employees had received cultural competency training. The collaborative has helped decrease the number of emergency department visits for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions by 9.2 percent.

Contact Information
J. Emilio Carrillo
ecarrill@nyp.org

This case study was originally featured in the HPOE guide: "Eliminating Health Disparities: Implementing the National Call to Action Using Lessons Learned," published February, 2012.