In an effort to improve the delivery of healthcare to Californians with limited English proficiency, health care, medical, and advocacy organizations throughout the state joined together in 2002 to create the Medical Leadership Council on Cultural Proficiency (MLC). Founded by The California Endowment and convened by the California Academy of Family Physicians, a group of 32 organizations have met biannually since then to assemble the best possible resources for providing culturally diverse health care, find solutions to the challenges of providing and funding interpreter and translation services, and more. Orange County Medical Association joined the Council in 2004 and has since been actively participating.

The MLC offers an unprecedented model for members of organized medicine, health plans, hospital, and consumer advocate groups to work together to identify policy and funding issues confronting doctors and other health care professionals. The discussions and data presented include quality improvement initiatives, information about continuing medical education, and forecasts on the California physician workforce.
One important goal of the MLC is to increase the health profession's workforce diversity. Data on the future of the physician workforce is unsettling: The University of California Advisory Council on Future Growth of Health Professionals forecasts that California will face a shortage of between 5,000-17,000 doctors by 2015. Fueling the shortage is the growth, aging, and increasing diversity of California's population; the rising incidences of chronic disease; the emphasis on prevention and wellness programs; and the need to increase access to health services for underserved populations.

Additionally, the current physician workforce is aging and the need for culturally and linguistically competent doctors to serve diverse communities is growing-all while medical education programs are lacking growth. Although many partnerships have been formed to respond to the shortages, increase workforce diversity and improve the number of generalists, there is still much more work to do.

One example of a successful program is the MLC's first-of-its-kind Language Access Resources Database (http://medicalleadership.org/
resource_interpreter.shtml) designed to assist physicians and others in providing improved language access and culturally proficient healthcare. The searchable, online database has more than 350 entries to date and includes resources for each county in California. Some of the resources and services the database can help you find are interpreter services, patient education materials in other languages, training on cultural awareness issues, and more.

Another excellent resource is PALS for Health (http://www.palsforhealth.org), the language access program of a nonprofit United Way agency that provides innovative services to diverse ethnic minority and disenfranchised communities. Specifically, PALS for Health offers trained health care interpreter and translator services in Spanish and 12 Asian and Pacific Islander languages. PALS works directly with both the provider and health consumer populations of Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

While there is still much work to do to reach the goals of a truly diverse healthcare system both the MLC and PALS for Health have made great strides in providing resources and bringing the issue to the forefront in Southern California. OCMA is proud to be an active participant and advocate for the groups' goals.