What efforts are being made by the NCCC and others to promote cultural competence and educate physicians?
A big focus right now is linking cultural and linguistic competence to quality of care and patient safety and the concept of patientand family-centered care. Another area that we are excited about is measuring cultural and linguistic competence both at a physician level and at the practice and healthcare systems level. What has been your experience in terms of physician acceptance of cultural competence education? Have you encountered resistance from physician groups? There is [some] resistance. However, if I look back over the last five years, at a minimum, there’s been a much greater degree of interest by physicians overall. I don’t think it’s by coincidence; I think that some have experienced changes in the demographic makeup of the patients to whom they provide healthcare. I think that we are also seeing a greater emphasis on this in terms of legislative, regulatory, and accreditation involvement. For instance, three states—New Jersey, Washington, and California—have enacted legisl
