HRC, GLMA release inaugural Healthcare Equality Index

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)