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Medical - Diversity in Health Care

The 2005 National Healthcare Disparities Report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that disparities related to race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status still pervade the American health care system. We’re doing our part to help reduce these ethnic and racial disparities in health care by offering education and resources for you and your office staff.

Free CME/CEU Quality Interactions® Courses
To help you care for patients of minority groups, we are offering free access to continuing medical education (CME) and continuing education unit (CEU) courses developed by the Manhattan Cross Cultural Group (MCCG). These courses, specifically designed for physicians, nurses and other health care practitioners offer quality interactions with patients in a clinical setting and teach skills for administering effective cross-cultural care. There are also four refresher courses for those who have already taken the Quality Interactions for Physicians course, and a free non-accredited course for non-clinical medical office staff.

Courses include:

• Quality Interactions for Physicians (2.5 CME credits)
• Quality Interactions for New Jersey Physicians (6 CME credits)
• Quality Interactions for Oncologists (2.5 CME credits)
• Quality Interactions for Nurses & Case Managers (2.5 CEU credits)
• 4 Quality Interactions Refresher Courses (1 CME credit each)
• Quality Interactions for Healthcare Employees (non-accredited)

To access these courses on the secure website, Log In or Register now. Once logged in, select "Aetna Health Plan" under "Plan Central". Select “Education” on the left navigation bar and follow the steps to the Education site home page to view the courses in our Cultural Competency course catalog.

We’re Working to Close the Healthcare Gap
Earlier this year, our Office of the Chairman commissioned a video, “Closing the Healthcare Gap.” This informative 12-minute video focuses on the issue of cultural and ethnic disparities in health care. The video includes interviews with physicians, patients and Aetna clinical staff discussing the reasons behind disparities and the impact health care professionals can have in providing quality care and more effective treatment for patients with diverse backgrounds.
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Multilingual Resources for You and Your Patients
Aetna’s commitment to valuing diversity is deeply rooted in our culture and embedded in our way of doing business with members and participating providers.

For instance, to ensure that our members have access to critical health care information in their preferred language, we are building our multilingual capabilities, beginning with Spanish, one of the most commonly spoken languages in the United States.

In fact, we’ve recently updated the Clinical Resources page of the secure website to include the following patient information materials in Spanish:

• Diabetes Patient Education Flyer
• Medication Reminder Tip Sheet
• Cholesterol Facts
• Managing Cholesterol for Better Health
• Patient Safety Tips

Feel free to download and print them for your Spanish-speaking patients.

Some of our other language-based initiatives for patients include:

• Multilingual customer service call centers staffed by bilingual professionals who respond to benefits questions in English, Spanish and, with the help of interpreters, Chinese and 150 other languages.
• Information and advice from bilingual nurses who provide members who call our Informed Health® Line with information on health-related topics. We also have Spanish-speaking nurse case managers who coordinate health care services, and disease management nurses who support members with chronic conditions.
• Bilingual online tools provide health information in Spanish and English. These tools include Aetna Navigator^®, our secure member website; DocFind®, our online directory of participating providers; and Healthwise® Knowledgebase.
• A breast self-exam instructional video available in both Spanish and English,¹ available on Aetna InteliHealth®, our award-winning online health information site offered in association with Harvard Medical School.
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