National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS)

The CLAS standards are primarily directed at health care organizations; however, individual providers are also encouraged to use the standards to make their practices more culturally and linguistically accessible. The principles and activities of culturally and linguistically appropriate services should be integrated throughout an organization and undertaken in partnership with the communities being served.

The 14 standards are organized by themes: Culturally Competent Care (Standards 1-3), Language Access Services (Standards 4-7), and Organizational Supports for Cultural Competence (Standards 8-14). Within this framework, there are three types of standards of varying stringency: mandates, guidelines, and recommendations as follows:

CLAS mandates are current Federal requirements for all recipients of Federal funds (Standards 4, 5, 6, and 7). CLAS guidelines are activities recommended by OMH for adoption as mandates by Federal, State, and national accrediting agencies (Standards 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13). CLAS recommendations are suggested by OMH for voluntary adoption by health care organizations (Standard 14).

For more information please go to http://www.omhrc.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=2&lvlID=15


Cultural Competency Training

NetworkOmni Multilingual Communications takes language services a step further through cultural competence training designed to help health care organizations, and now members of the IMIA, communicate more effectively with diverse patient populations. NetworkOmni Caring with CLAS: cultural competence in health careSM  is a full-day training program focused on the Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) standards. The training program is delivered live by expert trainers and serves a full team of care providers simultaneously. Caring with CLAS provides continuing education credits for physicians, physician assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners, administrators, social workers and pharmacists. NetworkOmni also offers customized CLAS training for organizational needs including train-the-trainer programs. For Caring with CLAS training program information, contact: CLAS@networkomni.com.