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BCT Partners, a Management Consulting Firm Wins OMH Think Cultural Health Contract

 

The US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health (OMH) has awarded a multi-year contract to BCT Partners to assist the Department in carrying out its mission to improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations.

 

According to David Hunt, BCT’s Senior Director of Health Equity, receiving this “prestigious and highly coveted national contract represents a major win for our growing national health equity practice.”

 

In 2003, OMH launched its Think Cultural Health (TCH) initiative. The goal of TCH is to advance health equity through the promotion and implementation of the National Culturally and Linguistic Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards. The National CLAS Standards are a set of 15 action steps intended to advance health equity, improve quality, and help eliminate health care disparities by providing a blueprint for health and health care organizations to implement culturally and linguistically appropriate services. In alignment with this goal, TCH activities focus on developing the capacity of health care professionals to address cultural and linguistic barriers in health care delivery.

 

The TCH website (https://thinkculturalhealth.hhs.gov/) serves as a platform through which resources can be accessed to increase the awareness and use of the National CLAS Standards to increase the competencies of health care providers to better serve the needs of racially and ethnically diverse populations.

 

Over the next few years, BCT will work closely with OMH to:

 

  • Consider proposed revisions to the National CLAS Standards;

  • Maintain and improve OMH’s Think Cultural Health website;

  • Update a suite of nine existing e-learning programs currently available on the TCH website and provide health care professionals with continuing education credits for completing these programs;

  • Develop new e-learning programs that focus on the law of language access in health care for Limited English Proficient and Deaf and Hard of Hearing patients, global medicine and culturally responsive care for LGBTQ+ patients;

  • Develop additional training courses and materials that health care organizations can use to train medical professionals on how to deliver culturally responsive care to historically marginalized or disadvantaged populations;

  • Enhance TCH’s national clearinghouse of resources on health equity, health disparities, health literacy, and population-specific clinical best practices for delivering culturally appropriate care;

  • Write and disseminate a quarterly e-newsletter to major national audiences detailing new research and policy developments affecting health equity issues;

  • Speak about the National CLAS Standards at national conferences and webinars;

  • Maintain and update an interactive map tracking state- and territory-led initiatives for mandated cultural and linguistic competency training; and

  • Conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness of the National CLAS Standards and offer recommendations for improving their effectiveness.

 

BCT partnered with GDIT and Community Science in responding to the OMH request for proposal. GDIT had had the TCH contract for the last 16 years and provided excellent and uninterrupted service under the leadership of Godfrey Jacobs, Amanda Gashel and Daniel Mouer. They also partnered with OMH to create all nine of the e-learning programs on the

Think Cultural Health website.

 

BCT’s contract with OMH began on October 1, 2022 and is expected to extend through September 30, 2027.

 

Riikka Salonen, BCT’s new Managing Director of Health Equity will serve as the Program Manager for the TCH project. David Hunt, BCT’s Senior Director of Health Equity will serve as a subject matter expert on the project. Dr. Kien Lee and Michelle Revels from Community Science will lead the evaluation efforts on the effectiveness of the National CLAS Standards.

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