YNHHS hospitals to be named Healthcare Equality Leaders
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation will award all five Yale New Haven Health hospitals the “LGBTQ Healthcare Equality Leader” designation in the upcoming Healthcare Equality Index 2019.
To earn this designation, Bridgeport, Greenwich, Lawrence + Memorial, Yale New Haven and Westerly hospitals each earned the highest survey scores on meeting non-discrimination criteria. The top scores demonstrate each hospital’s commitment to equitable, inclusive care for LGBTQ patients and their families, who can face significant challenges in securing quality health care.
The findings were part of the HRC Foundation’s 12th edition of the Healthcare Equality Index, an annual survey that encourages equal care for LGBTQ Americans by evaluating policies and practices related to LGBTQ patients, visitors and employees. The detailed report will be released later this summer.
“This recognition is extremely gratifying,” said Lisette Martinez, YNHHS chief diversity officer. “We continue to work diligently throughout the health system, in collaboration with hospital leaders and departmental committees, to ensure that YNHHS provides equitable, inclusive care for LGBTQ patients by spearheading changes such as removing gender markers from patient wrist bands and ensuring that electronic medical records contain inclusive identifiers, like fields to self-identify.”
The Office of Diversity and Inclusion has also worked with Human Resources to build self-identifying questions for employees and applicants and create process guidelines for transgender employees.
