NEW YORK — Just over half of 88 hospitals got top marks under a new rating system created by two national gay-rights organizations that hope the standards will result in more compassionate treatment of gay and lesbian patients.
Policies addressed in the ratings include patient nondiscrimination, visitation and decision-making rights for partners, diversity training for staff, and nondiscriminatory employment practices.
The hospitals participated voluntarily, and the groups behind the report said there will be no effort to rate hospitals that don’t want to respond. Instead, they hope many hospitals will strive for high ratings as the survey recurs annually.
Called the Healthcare Equality Index, the ratings were designed by the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association.
The index is modeled after the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, which rates corporations on policies for gay and lesbian workers.
The HRC and the medical association said their goal is to highlight hospitals with high rankings and induce others to abandon inequitable practices.
“Too many times, a gay man has been unable to comfort his partner, a transgender person has been ridiculed instead of treated, or a lesbian mom has been barred from seeing her child at the hospital,” the groups said.
The health-care index includes recommendations for hospitals, starting with the forms filled out by patients. It recommends that “transgender” be an option for gender and that relationship status include the term “partnered.”
For the report, go online to .
