The Language Equity and Accessibility Performance (LEAP) Initiative: Addressing disparities through a paradigm shift in language services operations

PROJECT SUMMARY Patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) continue to experience a range of health disparities compared to English-proficient patients. Addressing persistent gaps in language services requires a paradigm shift in which health systems evaluate and track their compliance with relevant regulations, implement staff training, and carefully craft and communicate exhaustive language access policies to staff. However, most health systems lack the expertise needed to carry out these specific recommendations. Public health and healthcare administration degree programs rarely cover language access in their curricula, and there is no national standardizing body or certification program for language access operations. This project will develop the Language Equity and Accessibility Performance (LEAP) Initiative to help health systems expand and improve their language services operations. The initiative includes three core innovations (1) a Language Accessibility Index (LAI), the first industry-wide benchmark to guide institutional efforts to improve language services and establish operational metrics, (2) an analytics dashboard for informed decision-making, and (3) an executive training and Certification for Language Access Services Professionals (CLASP), the first standardized training for language access professionals to demonstrate the expertise required to implement an effective language access policy at a hospital or health system. We will first carry out semi-structured interviews with a range of stakeholders to establish the needs and requirements for developing the three innovations. Our instructional design experts will then synthesize recommendations and best practices to design the LAI, dashboard, and interactive learning activities covering the complex facets of language access operations. Our engineering team will build out the technical capabilities needed to deliver the analytics dashboard and the online portion of the training. Finally, we will pilot the initiative in order to demonstrate overall effectiveness of the program for preparing administrators to improve, expand, and measure the impact of language services operations.