Children’s Mercy Hospital Recognized By LGBT Organization

Laura Ziegler – KCUR

The nation’s largest education and advocacy group for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has recognized Children’s Mercy Hospital for its progressive policies toward LGBT patients, employees, and families.

The Human Rights Campaign will honor Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, Mo., with the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Award.

Director of Diversity for Children’s Mercy, Gabriela Flores, said officials spent several months evaluating systems and policies to measure the facility’s  responsiveness to the needs of the LGBT community. The hospital had a non-discrimination policy, but it did not address issues and concerns of sexual orientation or gender identity.

As a result, Flores said the hospital revised standards relating to:

• domestic partnership benefits
• policy language
• visitation policies
• the collection of data  from LGBT families

Research from the Human Rights Campaign indicates members of the LGBT community frequently experience less access and poorer quality health care.

Flores said the efforts to be more responsive to the LGBT community are part of a broader effort on the part of the hospital to support a policy of diversity and health equity.

“(It is) one cog in the wheel we’ve been working on trying to (create) a comprehensive health system for patients and families,” Flores said.

Major Funding for Health coverage on KCPT provided by Assurant Employee Benefits and the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City.