Senate Bill 97, if it had passed, would have started a collaborative process between the Oregon Health Authority (through the Office of Multicultural Health and Services) and the various health care licensing boards in the state to come up with standards for cultural competency. The idea is to improve communications between providers and patients from diverse cultures.
Though the bill passed the Senate with bipartisan support (24-7) and passed the House Health Care Committee, it died in a series of votes on the House floor. You can read more about this bill and the House votes in an Oregonian article linked here.
SB 97 was the first bill that our Community Leadership Council agreed to support in 2011, seeing its clear impact on all three of the Triple Aim objectives – reducing cost, improving health and improving the experience of care. Though it died in the House, we will continue to work to see this work move forward. It will lead to better communication between patients and providers, and that can have significant impacts on reducing cost.
And, in terms of success, SB 97 raised significant awareness of the need for training if we want a culturally competent workforce, identified broad support and has led to new coalition partners who want to focus on health equity.
[fancy_titled_box title=”Track this Bill”]» The Oregonians’s SB 97 Bill-Tracking Page
» Text of SB 97A[/fancy_titled_box]
I believe this is almost undo-able. This “cultural competence” that you are seeking should have started in the provider’s home and requires a sensitivity to others that I do not believe can be taught. The reason that it is so rare in our providers can be found in the rigid high standard in the sciences for admission into our professional schools. We have asked for scientists and engineers. If we want Anthropologists and poets, we should recruit accordingly. Of course, that might get us very sensitive, technically incompetent hand wringers.
But I don’t think a law is going to change a persons intrinsic orientation.
Regards,
JDJ
Dr. Jannuzzi,
Thanks for sending in your comment. I find myself agreeing with your thought that ideally this would start in the home, but the reality is that for many providers it hasn’t, or hasn’t fully covered the basics of how best to respond to people from diverse backgrounds. Physically, bodies are the same, but people come with varied abilities to understand the complexities of medical diagnoses and treatments.
In Oregon, there were no licensing boards that opposed this bill – which would have them work collaboratively with the OHA to come up with standards. There is no preconceived notion of how this would turn out. The law won’t change behaviors, but getting providers working together to come up with a solution sounds like a good step forward.
My family has people from four countries, and a picture of my nieces and nephews shows how diverse our world is becoming. And each one of them deserves the same opportunity to be healthy. That is what this bill is about and why it is so important. But it unfortunately has gotten caught in the politics of a 30-30 tied House, and at least today it does not look like it will be debated on its policy merits this year.