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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Shandra M.T. Banutu-Gomez, MPH¹, Thomas Storey, MD, MPH², and Linda Cutler, ACMPE². (1) Health Federation of Philadelphia, 1211 Chestnut Street, Suite 700, Philadelphia, PA 19107, 215-567-8001, sbanutu@healthfederation.org, (2) Ambulatory Health Services, Philadelphia Department of Public Health, 500 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19146

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health-Ambulatory Health Services (AHS) collaborated with the Health Federation of Philadelphia (HFP) to develop a multi-pronged strategy to improve customer service practices by increasing the level of cultural competency among staff. The primary purpose of this process was to assist AHS in effectively supporting and optimizing its rapidly growing and increasingly diverse staff as well as consumer population. In order to address this issue, HFP implemented a comprehensive multi-level assessment using several techniques. This included assessing current practices and identifying staff perceptions by conducting interviews with AHS staff; reviewing current research and trends in the field; designing a training curriculum based upon the findings; delivering training in various modalities to AHS staff; developing and implementing a patient survey at AHS health centers; analyzing and utilizing the results for on-going program development and evaluation. Results of the assessment show that implementing cultural competency as a customer service strategy was not only beneficial to staff-consumer relationships, but also for staff-staff relationships. The implementation of these trainings heightened the awareness of the staff to the unique challenges of immigrant and minority populations, examined cultural misunderstandings and biases, and recognized cross-cultural communication differences.

Learning Objectives: