Hospitals in pursuit of excellence

Disparities Dashboard for Improving Care

Enriching. That's how AnMed Health views the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity of its community in relation to its workforce and care delivery. In 2001, the executive team at the 578-bed acute care system in Anderson, South Carolina, formalized a  commitment to diversity.  The health system boosted services for patients with limited English proficiency or who were deaf or hard-of-hearing. That year AnMed began offering interactive courses for employees on exploring diversity issues, using a medical or sign language interpreter and understanding the CLAS standards. Each following year, the health system expanded its services and educational offerings, all designed to provide better care for its diverse patient population. AnMed Health has developed a disparities dashboard to identify and strategically address its most vulnerable, underserved and costly patient populations. Phase I metrics provide a snapshot of race, ethnicity and language needs of patients served and scores for inpatient appropriate care, 30-day readmissions, and patient satisfaction. Phase II will focus on further monitoring of equitable care outcomes, trending for relevant interventions and sharing the dashboard design with other hospitals. For more information, contact Juana Slade, director, diversity and language services, at juana.slade@anmedhealth.org, or Suzanne Wilson, director, medical resource management, at suzanne.wilson@anmedhealth.org.