Developing a Self-Assessment Toolfor Culturally - Office of Minority ...

CHAPTER 3: PROJECT RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONSThis project produced three instruments for collecting data on CLAS provision inLPHAs. By using the self-assessment tool, health care professionals may examine theirown organizational policies and practices in relation to the extensive examples of CLASpractices listed in the tool itself. The tool’s questions and response options are designed toinform the respondent of a broad range of strategies and practices related to a particulartopic along the continuum of care. LPHAs may use the self-assessment tool to monitor andimprove overall health care quality in their agencies. Project results and recommendationsare described below.3.1 RESULTS3.1.1 Modification of the Project’s TitleAt the joint meeting of the PEP and PAG, members reached consensus on the need tochange the project’s title and scope from Local Health Departments (LHDs) to LocalPublic Health Agencies (LPHAs). Meeting participants mentioned that it was difficult toaccurately define LHDs, because LHDs are highly variable and are continuing to evolve.For instance, advisory group participants acknowledged that LHDs are often multijurisdictional,and there are other local public health entities (e.g., outreach programs,community health centers, and non-profit organizations) that would be excluded if LHDswere the primary focus of the self-assessment tool. To represent the (intended) moreinclusive terminology, the project title was changed to LPHAs, because the LHDs did notfully capture all local, publicly funded organizations responsible for providing essentialpublic health services.3.1.2 Overview of Revisions Made to CLAS InstrumentsDiscussions and deliberations at the PEP and PAG meeting yielded importantinformation on the structure and function of LPHAs and resulted in a number of necessaryrevisions to the three-component instrument used to measure CLAS provision in MCOs.Survey question wording and response options were revised to reflect LPHAcharacteristics. These revisions are described below and reflect the considerabledifferences between private and public health care entities, including differences inorganizational structure, size and operating budgets, mechanisms for developing policy,staffing and training, and service delivery practices.Organizational Structure. As described earlier, advisory group members informedOMH staff and the project team that LPHAs’ organizational structures vary from state tostate and even by county, and can be regulated by the state department of health and/or theCOSMOS Corporation, December 2003 3-1