These six words represent a major undertaking in health care in California and across the United States. Physicians, nurses, and others in our health care system are discovering the best ways to deliver culturally proficient health care. It means providing interpreter services for patients who can best communicate in languages other than English. It means providing health care in a way that respects patients’ cultural beliefs and practices. And it means increasing the diversity of our health care workforce.
The Medical Leadership Council on Cultural Proficiency (MLC) is a unique and powerful group of medical and specialty societies, health plans and health systems working to improve language access, cultural proficiency, and health care workforce diversity in California.
This Web site is part of that work. Providers, patients and advocates can click on the Language Access Database or any heading at the top of this page to find key resources. The searchable database provides contact information for interpreters and for organizations and Web sites providing services and patient education materials in several languages.
See other sections of this site for videos of expert presentations, Continuing Medical Education materials, toolkits for physician offices, publications, information about the MLC, and more. These are important tools for important work. Every patient deserves to be heard — and understood. Quality health care
