Reaching Milestones

Health Equity Checklists

Getting Started
Making Progress
Reaching Milestones

Reaching Milestones

With a good foundation (see “Getting Started” and “Making Progress” checklists) for systematically capturing and monitoring information, your organization can focus on refining and improving efforts to deliver equitable care.

The following checklist is intended to spur planning and dialogue. Organizations interested in conducting a more formal assessment may find it useful to consider one or more of organizational assessment tools found in Must Have Tools.

Our organization....

	Has a strategic plan for improving the delivery of equitable care.
	Has a policy prohibiting, except in emergency circumstances where waiting for an interpreter will compromise care, the use of family, minors, or other untrained individuals as health care interpreters.		See How Straight Talk: Model Hosptial Policies and Procedures on Language Access
	Has policies and processes (e.g., language testing) for systematically assessing the verbal and written language skills of bilingual providers.
	Routinely incorporates cultural and linguistic factors (e.g., literacy, cultural health beliefs) into disease management and quality improvement efforts.		See How Search under Standards and Promising Practices
	Integrates principles of culturally and linguistic responsive care into staff performance evaluations.
	Tracks and monitors health care disparities as an integral part of quality improvement efforts using tools such as equity dashboards.		See How Creating Equity Reports: A Guide for Hospitals
	Has a plan for addressing workforce diversity as a means of providing culturally and linguistically concordant care.
	Communicates the results of health disparities reduction efforts to our staff, patients, and communities.
	Routinely solicits staff, patient and community input on efforts to improve the delivery of equitable care.
	Continuously monitors progress and assesses resources allocated to improve the delivery of equitable care.