Our Health Equity Strategic Plan

MultiCare's five-year Health Equity Strategic Plan features five pillars:

• Cultural Competency
• Workforce Diversity
• Language Assistance
• Community Engagement
• Data Collection

These strategic areas were selected based on MultiCare's 2015 Cultural Competence Assessment and the American Hospital Association's #123 for Equity Pledge.To date, MultiCare has achieved the majority of the plan’s goals and strategies, and we are in process of developing our plan for the next five years.

Cultural Competency

Goal

Produce a culturally proficient, sensitive & responsive workforce by providing education and resources

Objectives

• Implement mandatory cultural competency education for all staff
• Develop MultiCare Cultural Diversity Council
• Create system diversity statement
• Enhance grievance system for staff and patients to report discrimination and diversity concerns
• Create Cultural Competence President’s Award for efforts within MultiCare
• Develop and implement LGBTQ education for staff

Workforce Diversity

Goal

Recruit, hire and retain a diverse workforce

Objectives

• Create diversity score card that examines staff & leadership diversity, retention, promotion to leadership, and so on.
• Develop workforce diversity plan
• Implement Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
• Increase awareness of MultiCare jobs in minority communities
• Create and maintain pipeline to health care professions in partnership with local schools/colleges

Language Assistance

Goal 

Increase promotion and access to Interpreter Services across MultiCare for limited English proficient, ASL and visually impaired patients

Objectives

• Implement Qualified Bilingual Staff (QBS) Program to certify bilingual MultiCare staff as interpreters
• Create Patient/Family Interpreter Line
• Develop Interpreter Services education module for MultiCare staff
• Explore additional interpreter vendors to serve ASL patients
• Expanding access to video remote interpreting (VRI) throughout the system

Community Engagement

Goal

Engage racial and sexual minority and marginalized communities to improve population health outcomes

Objectives

• Conduct community health needs assessment and develop effective strategies to address priority community needs
• Develop Health Equity Community Advisory Board (HECAB)
• Develop partnerships with faith-based communities
• Establish MultiCare Community Partnership Fund Program
• Increase diversity of Patient and Family Advisory Boards
• Outreach screenings

Data Collection

Goal

Improve demographic data collection to understand population served and to identify health disparities

Objectives

• Revise race, ethnicity, and language categories in Epic to reflect OMB standards
• Add sexual orientation, gender identify, and pronouns questions and an organ inventory in Epic to improve care for LGBTQ patients
• Add social determinants of health assessment in Epic and develop referral process
• Develop health equity dashboard to identify patient care disparities