From MSNBC New York:
It’s called the Healthcare Equality Index, and just over half of 88 hospitals got top marks under this new rating system created by the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, which hope the standards will result in more compassionate treatment of gay and lesbian patients.
Policies addressed in the ratings include patient nondiscrimination, visitation and decision-making rights for partners, diversity training for staff, and nondiscriminatory employment practices.
The hospitals participated voluntarily, and the groups behind the report said there will be no effort to rate hospitals which don’t want to respond. Instead, they hope many hospitals will strive for high ratings as the survey recurs annually.
Some responses to the new survey came from hospital networks. Kaiser Permanente, answering on behalf of 31 hospitals in California and Hawaii, said all met the survey’s 10 criteria. They were among 45 hospitals in all with top marks.
University Hospitals of Cleveland, representing 10 Ohio hospitals, said they fully met only two criteria — domestic partner benefits for employees and a patient nondiscrimination policy that includes sexual orientation.
The HRC and the medical association said their goal is to highlight hospitals with high rankings and induce others to abandon inequitable practices.
The healthcare index includes recommendations for hospitals, starting with the forms filled out by patients. It recommends that “transgender” be an option for gender and that relationship status include the term “partnered” as well as “single,” “married,” “divorced” and “widowed.” (full article here)
HRC’s website page (here) on the Healthcare Equality Index, has a link to the index where you can check by state which hospitals participated.
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On a local note, I checked Pennsylvania and found only one (Pennsylvania Hospital) listed. I’m not sure why more weren’t listed, but I know that the Mainline Heath System, which hospitals include: Lankenau, Bryn Mawr, and Paoli have non-LGBT discrimination policies in place, and that last fall, a representative from the Bryson Institute met with the Mainline Health System’s Diversity Committee and gave a seminar about LGBT issues regarding patients and employees. So, just because a hospital isn’t on the list, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s behind in LGBT concerns.
