These standards are relevant to ACCME-accredited, CMA-accredited, and jointly accredited providers located in California. 

The California Medical Association (CMA) announced the standards for Cultural Linguistic Competency and Implicit Bias in CME. These standards were developed with the guidance of the ACCME and an advisory council of CME and health equity experts, with input from key stakeholders and a public comment process. The goal of the standards is to support the role of accredited CME in advancing diversity, health equity, and inclusion in healthcare.

CMA developed the standards in response to California legislation (Business and Professions (B&P) Code Section 2190.1), which directs CMA to draft a set of standards for the inclusion of cultural and linguistic competency (CLC) and implicit bias (IB) in accredited CME.

The standards are intended to support CME providers in meeting the expectations of the legislation. CME provider organizations physically located in California and accredited by CMA CME or ACCME, as well as jointly accredited providers whose target audience includes physicians, are expected to meet these expectations beginning January 1, 2022.

CMA CME offers a variety of resources and tools to help providers meet the standards and successfully incorporate CLC & IB into their CME activities, including FAQ, definitions, a planning worksheet, and best practices. These resources are available on the CLC and IB standards page on the CMA website.

Definitions:

Cultural Competence:  A set of integrated attitudes, knowledge, and skills that enables a health care professional or organization to care effectively for patients from diverse cultures, groups, and communities.  At a minimum, cultural competency is recommended to include the following: (A) Applying linguistic skills to communicate effectively with the target population; (B) Utilizing cultural information to establish therapeutic relationships; (C) Eliciting and incorporating pertinent cultural data in diagnosis and treatment; (D) Understanding and applying cultural and ethnic data to the process of clinical care. 

Linguistic Competence: The ability of a physician and surgeon to provide patients who do not speak English or who have limited ability to speak English, direct communication in the patient’s primary language; Providing readily available, culturally appropriate oral and written language services to limited English proficiency (LEP) members through such means as bilingual/bicultural staff, trained medical interpreters, and qualified translators.

Cultural and Linguistic Competence: The ability of health care providers and health care organizations to understand and respond effectively to the cultural and linguistic needs brought by the patient to the health care encounter.

Implicit Bias: The attitudes or internalized stereotypes that affect our perceptions, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner, exists, and often contributes to unequal treatment of people based on race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, and other characteristic; Unconscious favoritism toward or prejudice against people of a particular ethnicity, gender, or social group that influences one’s actions or perceptions.

Direct links to AB1195 and AB241:

Bill Text – AB-1195 Continuing education: cultural and linguistic competency.

Bill Text – AB-241 Implicit bias: continuing education: requirements.

Additional CLC & IB online resources:

Diversity-Wheel-as-used-at-Johns-Hopkins-University-12.png (850×839) (researchgate.net)

Cultural Competence In Health and Human Services | NPIN (cdc.gov)

Cultural Competency – The Office of Minority Health (hhs.gov)

Implicit Bias, Microaggressions, and Stereotypes Resources | NEA

Unconscious Bias Resources | diversity.ucsf.edu

Act, Communicating, Implicit Bias (racialequitytools.org)