Assessing the quality of cultural competence training – what are the markers of an effective program, and is it time for a national standard or other rating system?

1. A brief description of the specific topic/initiative you will discuss

The goal of the presentation is to address the important role cultural competency training plays in the bigger issue of addressing healthcare disparities. Dr. Green will provide a view from the field – trends in policy, as well as how organizations are now implementing a new, on-line cultural competency training program. He then will demonstrate a program that was developed specifically to train frontline staff at healthcare organizations nationwide called Quality Interactions for Healthcare Employees. Quality Interactions is an e-learning program that provides interactive, case-based instruction on cross-cultural health care. This interactive program teaches concepts and skills for understanding and interacting effectively with individuals from culturally diverse backgrounds including patients, customers, and coworkers. There is also a clinical version of the program for doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals.

2. Successes of your program/innovative approach

The Quality Interactions program uses an innovative e-learning format to allow access to participants 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It has proven to be an effective and efficient way to implement cultural competency training for large and small organizations with minimal preparation time and a useful tracking mechanism for completion, performance, and evaluation. Today the program has been used to train over 12,000 healthcare professionals around the country at leading institutions including Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Mayo Clinic, Aetna Healthcare, and several BlueCross-BlueShield Health Plans.

3. Challenges you face(d) and how they were addressed

Dr. Green will provide an overview of the challenges faced in administering our online cultural competency training and will conclude with the steps taken to address these challenges. Challenges include:

• Effective implementation models
• Measuring outcomes of cultural competency training
• Integrating e-learning with live training

4. Practical advice for replication, lessons learned, take-home tools/techniques/resources

The session will cover key lessons learned from several years of experience using e-learning to train large organizations in cultural competency for both clinical and non-clinical interactions. We will discuss the use of a facilitator’s guide to implement a hybrid approach, integrating e-learning with live training.