Characteristics of acute care hospitals with diversity plans and translation services

Hospitals provide diversity activities for a number of reasons. The authors examined community demand, resource availability, managed care, institutional pressure, and external orientation related variables that were associated with acute care hospital diversity plans and translation services. The authors used multiple logistic regression to analyze the data for 478 hospitals in the 2006 National Inpatient Sample (NIS) dataset that had available data on the racial and ethnic status of their discharges. We also used 2004 and 2006 American Hospital Association (AHA) data to measure the two dependent diversity variables and the other independent variables. We found that resource, managed care, and external orientation variables were associated with having a diversity plan and that resource, managed care, institutional, and external orientation variables were associated with providing translation services. The authors concluded that more evidence for diversity's impact, additional resources, and more institutional pressure may be needed to motivate more hospitals to provide diversity planning and translation services.