Improving minority health care Monica Hayes, EdD ’10 Assistant director, Florida Office of Minority Health

For Monica Hayes, Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership (EdD) ’10, her collective experience in education and social work, along with her two master’s degrees and a doctorate, have culminated in her newest role with the Florida Office of Minority Health (FOMH). There, she is using her expertise in cultural and linguistic competency to help Floridians enjoy quality health care, regardless of their race or ethnicity.

On a mission

Dr. Hayes serves as the assistant director of the FOMH, a division of the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) that works to improve minority health outcomes throughout the state. “Through our grant-funded Closing the Gap program, we support community outreach efforts in 23 counties in Florida,” she explains. The program focuses on improving health outcomes and preventing disease in the following areas: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, immunization rates, HIV/AIDS, maternal and infant care and oral health. “We also have a state partnership grant that supports sustainability in programs run by community and faith-based entities,” she adds.

In her role, Dr. Hayes works to ensure that the FDOH is a culturally and linguistically competent system that is responsive to the needs of all Floridians. But just what is cultural competency? “In its simplest form, cultural competency is the ability to work effectively across cultures,” Dr. Hayes wrote in an article in The Power Broker, an electronic magazine for the Tampa Bay region’s multicultural community. “Cultural competency is not simply awareness of differences. It’s the ability to value differences responsively and respectfully,” she continued. “What I want is to get the language of cultural competency in the hands of everyday people,” she says of her work.

Evolving a system

Florida’s minority health care needs are unique for many reasons. “First, Florida is growing quickly,” Dr. Hayes notes. “It’s also a gatekeeper state, with a diverse population from South and Central America. People also come here to vacation from all over the world, and some of them stay. We are ripe for a laboratory for health and education.”

According to Dr. Hayes, this broad population demands exceptional effort in order to ensure quality health care for all. “We’ve been doing things the same way for the past 50 years, and we wonder why we have the same outcomes,” she asserts. “It seems to me that we need to look at the skill sets of health care staff and work with them on the notion of cultural and linguistic competencies.”

A new style of patient care

To that end, Dr. Hayes is conducting pilot training sessions with health care professionals to determine how they can most effectively learn about cultural and linguistic competency in a replicable and meaningful way. As one physician who attended her two-day, 10-hour session said, “This is going to change the way we practice medicine.”

For her part, Dr. Hayes hopes that her training is just the beginning for the health practitioners and social workers who participate. “I don’t claim that one will be culturally competent at the end of the training,” she stresses. “It is a lifelong journey. It is no longer just about race and ethnicity. Although these groups historically have been underserved in education and health, if we do better for minorities, then we do better for everyone.”

Dr. Hayes’s own diverse background uniquely qualifies her for her job. Bilingual and bicultural by training herself, she grew up in New York surrounded by the sounds of different languages and the smells of foods from around the world. “From an early age, I learned that different people could live together peacefully,” she remembers. Dr. Hayes’ master’s degrees in teaching and social work also contribute to her ability to understand diverse cultures and teach others to do the same. “And my doctorate from University of Phoenix taught me the journey of self teaching and exposed me to the reality of scholarship and research,” she reflects.

Making a meaningful difference

One of her greatest joys is when Dr. Hayes sees the health care professionals in her training program start to comprehend what she is teaching them. “It’s really when I see the light go on,” she says. “They start to understand the need to engage and find a common language with their patients. My job is to help them make that connection.”

According to Dr. Hayes, anyone can do the same, whether they work in health care or another industry. “I encourage people to go beyond what they think they know and invest in learning more about their own cultures,” she advises. “Learning about your own heritage can help you understand and appreciate the culture of others.”

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What is cultural competency? It’s the ability to respect cultural differences and work effectively with all members of a diverse population. Dr. Monica Hayes provides this example to further explain insufficient cultural competency: “An American Caucasian nurse conducting a diabetic diet management class for Mexican Americans using a standard American diet menu, without realizing the implications of culture on diet and beliefs, would not achieve good patient compliance,” she says.