Hospital Earns Top Score for Healthcare Equality

Desert Regional Medical Center Earns Top Score in Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2022 Healthcare Equality Index

PALM SPRINGS —Desert Regional Medical Center has received an evaluation of 100 and the designation of “LGBTQ+ Healthcare Equality Leader” in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 15th anniversary edition of the Healthcare Equality Index (HEI), the nation’s foremost benchmarking survey of healthcare facilities on policies and practices dedicated to the equitable treatment and inclusion of their LGBTQ+ patients, visitors and employees.

A record 906 healthcare facilities actively participated in the 2022 HEI survey and 496 of those earned an “LGBTQ+ Healthcare Equality Leader” designation.

“It’s a sincere honor to receive the HRC’s LGBTQ+ Health Care Equality Leader designation for the seventh consecutive year,” Michele Finney, CEO of Desert Regional Medical Center, said in a prepared statement. “We strive to provide excellent care to all our patients each day but receiving this recognition for the care we provide the LGBTQ+ community is and will always be an incredibly special honor.”

The HEI evaluates and scores healthcare facilities on detailed criteria falling under four central pillars:

• Foundational Policies and Training in LGBTQ+ Patient-Centered Care.
• LGBTQ+ Patient Services and Support.
• Employee Benefits and Policies; and,
• Patient and Community Engagement.

In the 2022 report, an impressive 496 facilities earned HRC’s “LGBTQ+ Healthcare Equality Leader” designation, receiving the maximum score in each section and earning an overall score of 100. Another 251 facilities earned the “Top Performer” designation with scores between 80 and 95 points and at least partial credit in each section. With 82% of participating facilities scoring 80 points or more, health care facilities are demonstrating concretely that they are going beyond the basics when it comes to adopting policies and practices in LGBTQ+ care.

The remarkable progress reflected in the 2022 HEI includes:

• 93% of participants met the HEI’s training requirements, completing more than 200,000 hours of staff training in LGBTQ+ patient-centered care.
• 82% of participating facilities earned either the Leader or Top Performer.
• 99% of HEI participants documented that they include both “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in their patient non-discrimination policy.
• 99% of HEI participants documented that they include both “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in their employment nondiscrimination policy.
• 81% of HEI participants offer transgender-inclusive healthcare benefits to their employees, up from 75% in 2019, which was the first year this it was required in order to obtain Leader status in 2020.

In addition to active survey participants, the HRC Foundation proactively researched the key policies for LGBTQ+ inclusion at over 1,300 non-participating hospitals. Unfortunately, these research hospitals were much less likely to have LGBTQ+ non-discrimination policies in place, which is a stark contrast to the near-perfect adoption by active participants. Among the researched hospitals in which we were able to find or obtain enumerated patient non-discrimination policies, only 70% have policies that include both sexual orientation and gender identity compared to 99% of HEI participants.