What is Cultural Competency in health care?
The ability of systems to provide effective care to people of various cultures, races, ethnic backgrounds, and religions in a manner that recognizes values, affirms, and respects the worth of the individuals.
The importance of cultural competency:
- Caring for culturally diverse members.
- Effective communication between members and provider leads to better outcomes.
- “Culturally and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS) are a way to improve the quality of services provided to all individuals, which will ultimately help reduce health disparities and achieve health equity.”1
Benefits of cultural competency:
- Improves health outcomes.
- Supports cultural sensitivity and unbiased quality care.
- Delivering care that is respectful of beliefs, cultural and linguistic needs of diverse patients.
- Reducing health disparity and improving access to high quality care.
Culturally competent care:
Texas Children’s Health Plan’s commitment to culturally competent care is reflected in our mission of creating a healthier future for children and women throughout our global community. Therefore, we are committed to ensuring our providers, vendors and community partners fully recognize and care for the culturally diverse needs of the members we serve.
TCHP’s Cultural Competency Plan
We invite you to review our Cultural Competency Plan detailing the Culturally and Linguistically
Appropriate Services (CLAS) that are provided for TCHP staff, members and providers.
Provider Training
To support TCHP’s Cultural Competency Plan, we strongly encourage providers to complete the Health and Human Services, Texas Health Steps, Culturally Effective Health Care online course.
