The D.C. region’s top business and nonprofit leaders have pledged new support for improving the diversity of the area’s health care work force. The coordinated effort began last week following the release of a new report by the Consumer Health Foundation that highlighted
unmet issues facing the Capital region in health services, especially for the increasingly diverse population and the swelling ranks of the uninsured. The report identified language barriers and cultural disparities between those seeking care and those offering it as major obstacles to improving service in the region.
The new head of the area’s Board of Trade believes the challenge is to bring together the business and nonprofit sectors to address the issue.
“This is not a problem that is sneaking up on us, but one that we are well aware of,” said James Dinegar, president and CEO of the Greater Washington Board of Trade.
Dinegar said he believes that nonprofits that serve the Hispanic community could help better serve as a clearing house of sorts to bring together all of the Latino cultures that are growing in the area.
“These people are the well-to-do, business owners, and also those in need,” Dinegar observed.
The for-profit world could help by bringing its best practices, such as health clinics, to those nonprofits, or by providing funding for job training.
Both sectors need to address this issue, because the “growing needs of the Hispanic and Latino communities aren’t replacing existing population segments, but are adding to it. This need will only increase as the region’s diversity grows,” he said.
But some nonprofit health care leaders felt the solution lies with the business community. Sharon Baskerville, Executive Director of the D.C. Primary Care Association, pointed to business as the only place where funds would be available to address a problem of such a large scale.
“It’s a resource issue, and can only be addressed by those with the resources to solve it,” she said, meaning the business community.
“There are many small nonprofits that have done intervention [programs] with one translator,” Baskerville said. “What they all have in common is that they are struggling to find ways to fund them. To suggest that nonprofits should do more when they are stretched thin — well, give me a break.”
Margaret O’Bryon, president and CEO of the Consumer Health Foundation, said their report was generated by input gathered at meetings around the area with health care professionals and other nonprofit groups.
Attendees at every one of their meetings, called Speakouts, complained about the lack of translators and culturally savvy health care workers.
“Linguistic competency was raised again and again as an unmet problem, which is part of the larger cultural differences we found between providers and prospective patients,” O’Bryon said.
Health-grant makers are also addressing the issue. “Funders have been, and will continue to, look for ways to help build a culturally diverse workforce,” said Kathy Freshley, senior program officer of the D.C.-based Meyer Foundation.
According to Freshley, the Foundation has a long history of funding workforce development nonprofits that reach out to immigrants and multi-linguals. “There is an active workforce development funders group looking at where the gaps and opportunities are. Local funders are seeking ways to collaborate to bring more investment in this area by national funders,” she added.
Baskerville said that she hoped the report would help galvanize action by government and others with the “power and influence” to implement its recommendations. “Otherwise, we’ll still be talking about this 50 years from now.”
Have information about area nonprofits? Contact Frank Sietzen at [email protected].
