As all healthcare organizations know, employee training is critical for policies to be lived out fully and consistently. Organizations have found training particularly important for ensuring LGBTQ+ patient-centered care. Training employees in LGBTQ+ concerns not only ensures that LGBTQ+ patients receive equitable and culturally competent care. It also helps to improve the general hospital climate towards all LGBTQ+ people, specifically LGBTQ+ employees.
The Joint Commission’s LGBT Field Guide explicitly notes that a hospital can only provide welcoming and competent care through a workforce that is prepared to do so. The Field Guide urges healthcare facilities to provide its employees with training in LGBTQ+ patient-centered care, stating that “hospitals should offer employees high-quality training that equips them with the tools to provide equitable, knowledgeable, and welcoming care for LGBTQ+ patients and their families.” The Field Guide further provides a list of suggested LGBTQ+ topics to cover in trainings, varying methods to train employees, and other key recommendations in training employees in LGBTQ+ patient-centered care.
Staff Training - Executive Briefing - For new facilities or those that have not previously met the training requirement, key senior executives must complete the LGBTQ+ Patient-Centered Care: An Executive Briefing training provided by the HEI
OR
Staff Training - Ongoing - Returning facilities that have previously met the Executive Briefing requirement must provide staff with training and development opportunities specific to health equity, culturally competent patient care, and employee inclusion and belonging that incorporate LGBTQ+ topics.
Please note that each participating healthcare facility will only have ONE of these requirements. Once a facility has met the Executive Briefing requirement, it's training requirement will be the Ongoing Training Requirement as long as it continues to participate in the HEI survey and meet the ongoing training requirement. Facilities are NOT required to complete the Executive Briefing each year.
TRAINING+ - Additional Training in LGBTQ+ Patient-Centered Care
The Executive Briefing is currently being modified for the HEI 2026. More information about how to meet this requirement is coming soon.
To receive credit in the HEI, a facility must:
Demonstrate a commitment to providing ongoing training and development opportunities specific to health equity, culturally competent patient care, and employee inclusion and belonging that incorporate LGBTQ+ topics.
Facilities must provide evidence that at least three training opportunities have been made available to staff, and indicate that these training opportunities covered LGBTQ+ relevant topics.
To receive credit in the HEI, a facility must:
Provide staff training on LGBTQ+ health equity and/or culturally competent patient care for a minimum number of hours to meet the Training+ criteria. The minimum number of hours required to meet the Training+ requirement is equal to 5% of the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) staff at the healthcare facility.
At least one senior manager (Director, Vice President or Chief level) in each of the following work areas must complete the training:
The senior managers that attend this training must be the highest ranking staff member from each of these work areas for the specific facility. Senior managers are typically at the level of Director or higher.
Yes. However, you must still have 5 senior managers attend, so you can substitute any additional senior manager from the four other management groups. In addition if your healthcare facility is a clinical site with multiple locations such as an FQHC, etc, then the clinic director/manager for each clinical site must also complete the training.
We are currently in the process of updating the Executive Briefing Training. We will provide more communication and the Executive Briefing process and the designation of executives once the training is completed.
No external training can be substituted for the Executive Briefing Training.
Sign-in sheets/LMS reports or other attendance verification is no longer required to meet the ongoing training requirement. To receive credit, you must submit evidence that different training and development opportunities specific to health equity, culturally competent patient care, and/or employee inclusion and belonging were made available to your staff. At least three separate occurrences of these trainings must be made available to staff to receive credit. You must also demonstrate that the training contained LGBTQ+ relevant content.
The HEI Team reserves the right to request additional documentation, including training outlines, slides, or other supporting evidence, as needed to confirm that LGBTQ+ content is present in the trainings.
From January 1, 2024, through the fall of 2025, employees must have had access to at least three occurrences of the following types of training opportunities that included LGBTQ+ content:
·Health Equity and/or Culturally Competent Patient Care Trainings that are housed on your learning management system
·External Health Equity and/or Culturally Competent Patient Care Trainings that are promoted on your intranet or learning management system
·Health Equity and/or Culturally Competent Patient Care Trainings that were offered live (either in person or online/remote)
·Local Health Equity and/or Culturally Competent Patient Care Conferences that were promoted to your staff
·Clinical Care trainings on health topics relevant to the LGBTQ+ community offered live (ex., Grand Rounds/webinar) or via your learning management system
·Employee inclusion and belonging training that is housed on your learning management system
·Employee inclusion and belonging trainings that were offered live (either in person or online/remote)
A single training is defined as one "occurrence". For example, if an "LGBTQ+ Patients 101" training is offered once a month, this would only count for one out of the three required occurrences of training. However, if your organization offers three unique Lunch & Learns on different LGBTQ+ patient care topics, this would meet the criteria and count as three separate occurrences.
The executive briefing or the ongoing training requirement is necessary to achieve a designation.
For the HEI 2026, the HEI will accept any trainings completed from January 1, 2024 through the final survey deadline for that year (including any granted extensions).
The Training+ requirement has been created to encourage the importance of LGBTQ+ patient-centered care trainings but also to celebrate those organizations that have excelled at exceeding their training requirements.
To meet the Training + requirement, your facility must demonstrate that staff have completed at least a certain number of hours of training on LGBTQ+ health equity and/or culturally competent patient care. The minimum number of training hours equals 5% of the number of FTEs at the healthcare facility.
For the Training + requirement, you will submit evidence of training hours directly in the survey platform.
No - we are no longer requiring pre-approval of training content. All training information will be submitted in the survey platform.
All staff that interface with patients are invited and encouraged to participate in these trainings. This includes all staff who provide care at your facility (nurses, physicians, residents, fellows, etc.) even if they are not employed by your facility. Note that trainings provided by affiliated medical schools as part of medical school curriculum do not count toward your facility's training requirement.
For your FTE calculations, in most cases you should only count the employees that work at, and are employed by, each specific healthcare facility that has an HEI facility ID (i.e., each hospital). The number of employees should include all staff, not just clinical staff, since all employees can impact patient experience. However, there are some special considerations:
If employees are assigned to work at a specific hospital but are officially employed by the parent corporation/healthcare system, they should be counted towards that specific hospital’s FTEs.
Members of your clinical team who are not officially employed by either the individual hospital or the parent corporation/healthcare system (ex. Physicians that are part of the affiliated medical group, residents, etc.) do not have to be included in the FTE count.
However, they may complete training, and their hours may count towards meeting the hospital’s training hours for the hospital where they most frequently work.
Meeting the Training+ Requirement is necessary to achieve the Leader designation. The executive briefing or the ongoing training requirement is necessary to achieve any designation, including Leader.
No - we are no longer requiring pre-approval of training content. All training evidence should be submitted in the survey platform.
No, trainings can be of any length. If your staff are completing shorter trainings you will just need more staff to complete the trainings to meet your required minimum number of hours for the Training+ requirement.
No. Trainings do not have to offer CME/CEU credits to count in the HEI. However, the trainings provided by the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center, as well as many external trainings, such as LGBTQ+ health conferences, do offer CME/CEU credit.