Health Equity
Our Health Equity Department is organized around 3 core elements (Strategic Partnership, Language Access, and Mapping Community Barriers to Health) and seeks to remove access barriers related to language, legal and social needs to improve health outcomes.
Strategic Community Partnerships
To achieve equity, we must promote policies, systems, and overall community conditions that enable optimal health for all. The Strategic Community Partnerships program organizes our advocacy strategy, community partnerships network and initiatives dedicated to mapping and assessing community needs. Advocacy plays a crucial role in influencing public policies that can generate systemic changes and address the social determinants of health. Partnerships represent an approach to address solutions beyond the provision of health care and often outside of the health sector. An intersectoral approach is needed to address the dynamic and inter-dependent nature of the social determinants of health. Additionally, the program works directly with the community to understand health needs, assets and key drivers to determine how to collaborate with coalitions, and multi-sector partners.
Language Access through Medical Interpretation
To ensure equal access to healthcare for Limited English Proficient individuals, La Clínica provides medical interpretation in over eight languages and American Sign Language (ASL) on-site and at community health organizations and local hospitals. We are D.C.’s only non-profit provider of health-related interpreter services to government agencies and healthcare organizations, among them the DC Department of Health Care Finance (DHCF), Department of Health (DOH), and other Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). Medical interpretation is paired with navigation to help clients prepare for office visits, complete intake forms, attend appointments, receive treatment instructions, and arrange follow-up visits. Our model combines personalized attention, community knowledge, and linkages with a professional language services operation, including a streamlined and efficient claims-based billing system.
Language Access through Medical InterpretationLanguage Justice
Simultaneous Interpretation for meetings, support groups and other group gatherings is also available through experienced simultaneous interpreters. La Clínica provides document translation services to our community clinic partners as well as the general community.