INDIANAPOLIS – In an effort to advance health equity, improve quality and help eliminate health care disparities, MDwise follows the Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) standards developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its Office of Minority Health.
MDwise developed a CLAS-specific work plan. Currently, the plan contains 53 active/ongoing and 31 completed goals. These include MDwise’s Health Disparity project, which helped bring awareness to the low breast cancer screening rates among Asian women. MDwise also provided practitioners with language assistance resources and implemented training for bilingual staff in its Customer Service department.
“We are dedicated to providing quality care to a diverse member base,” said Cesar D. Martinez, president and CEO of MDwise. “By following the CLAS standards, we’re able to offer improved services that are responsive to the diverse cultural health beliefs and practices of our members in their preferred languages.”
For more information about national CLAS standards, visit
https://www.thinkculturalhealth.hhs.gov.