The Human Rights
Campaign Foundation and the Gay and Lesbian Medical
Association will release today, October 1, the inaugural
edition of the Healthcare Equality Index, a new annual
report that assesses hospitals nationwide on a range
of criteria relevant to LGBT patients and consumers.
In the tradition of HRC's influential Corporate
Equality Index, which evaluates American
companies' gay-friendly policies and practices,
the Healthcare Equality Index is the first comprehensive
look at how the medical industry responds to the needs
of the LGBT community.
"The
Healthcare Equality Index sets a standard that didn't
exist before," Ellen Kahn, director of
HRC's Family Project, which oversaw the
index, told The Advocate. "It sets the
bar for what different kinds of health care institutions
should be doing with respect to the GLBT community,
and it creates a system of transparency and
accountability, particularly for institutions making an
effort to create better practices."
"In my
mind, equality in health care is one of the pillars of our
movement for full equality and civil rights," said
Joel Ginsberg, executive director of GLMA.
"There are so many areas where we have to do a
lot of work, but health care has emerged as an important
issue for all people. Health care has risen to the top
of the agenda for Americans."
To that end, the
HEI attempts to gauge where the hospital industry
currently stands regarding issues of importance to the LGBT
community. Starting last year, surveys were mailed to
1,000 hospitals across the country, which were granted
one-time-only anonymity to respond. It was a way for
the hospitals to become acclimated to the idea of the HEI
before individual results were made public. "We
felt it was simply respectful and fair to allow the
industry to understand the issues, to try to pull
together some key policies that they can start thinking
about, and to be ready to get the best possible
rating" the next time, said Ginsberg.
Out of that
1,000, 78 hospitals responded, from 20 states and
the District of Columbia, providing a wealth of information
in five primary areas: patient nondiscrimination;
visitation; decision-making; cultural competency
training for staff; and employment policies. Ginsberg
calls the initial results a "mixed bag." For instance, of
the 78 hospitals, 50 have in place written policies
affirming that patients with same-sex partners have
the same access to their partners as married spouses
and next of kin, and 56 allow patients to designate their
domestic partners or someone else as a medical decision
maker for them. Only 45 of the hospitals have a
written policy that allows same-sex parents the same
rights as opposite-sex parents for medical
decision-making for their minor children. On cultural
competency, 57 hospitals provide training to personnel
that specifically addresses the unique issues facing
LGBT patients and their families. Both HRC and GLMA
acknowledge that these numbers are not enough to represent
what the entire medical community is doing, but they
do identify some early trends that have never
before been documented.
Ennis Shells,
director of patient and concierge services at Advocate
Illinois Masonic Medical Center, a hospital that responded
to the survey, believes the HEI will influence both
patients and providers.
"With so
much competition, hospitals have to market themselves as
well as they can," Shells said. Advocate
Illinois has satellite offices in 19 different
communities and serves "a very diverse
community," he said. Responding to the HEI
survey only brought attention to what the hospital was
already doing right, like allowing same-sex partners the
same access as that provided a married heterosexual couple.
"We're a very diverse hospital and
we're proud of our diversity," Shells said.
Results from the
2007 HEI will be posted online at the organizations' Web
sites, HRC.org and GLMA.org, today, and will
also be included with the 2008 HEI survey, being mailed out
to the 1,000 largest hospitals in the country, along
with the 78 hospitals that responded to this inaugural
edition. Both HRC and GLMA expect a much bigger
response for this next round.
"A lot can
change in a year," said HRC's Kahn.
"Now people know that this is happening and
there has been some buzz among hospital administrators.
This is a new thing for hospitals to do. We're
hopeful, going forward, that we're going to
have a higher level of participation."
At that point the
HEI will start to resemble the Corporate Equality Index
and its rankings of participants on numerous criteria.
Eventually, that information will become the basis of
an online resource for patients and consumers to use
when searching for hospitals that can meet their
particular health care needs.
"Change in
health care is slow," Ginsberg said. "It takes
years to really understand the scope of the problem
and then to come up with solutions. We're not
going to simply settle. We want the whole enchilada."
(William Henderson, The Advocate)
