A Home for Everyone

HHC's expertise in caring for patients from a rich variety of cultural backgrounds was again recognized when Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital recently received the national Hobart Jackson Cultural Diversity Award from the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA). The nursing home was selected from among 5,300 facilities nationwide.

Patient Representative Supervisor Nelson Cabrera knows that when a family needs to hospitalize a loved one in a nursing home, the last thing they want to worry about is whether the patient will be understood by his caregivers.

“Patients and families, regardless of their nationality or language spoken, can expect quality healthcare here,” says Cabrera. “Residents who speak limited English have the assistance of well-trained medical interpreters and other language services. They can be confident that their needs will be understood and respected.”

The facility is a true melting pot, with 43 percent of the patients African American, 28 percent Caucasian, 21 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Asian and 4 percent Indian. There are 15 different languages spoken among them and 15 percent of the resident population speaks limited English.

Like other HHC facilities, the staff at Coler-Goldwater reflects that same diversity as the patients. Residents can expect their caregivers to understand their needs, because they share the same heritage. Fifty percent of the staff are African American, 24 percent are Asian, nearly 15 percent are Hispanic and 11 percent are Caucasian.

“The diversity of Coler-Goldwater’s patients and workforce mirrors the city’s population,” said Claude Ritman, Executive Director of the facility. “With one of the largest nursing facilities in the greatest city in the world, we are prepared to communicate with all who enter our doors and let them know that they are part of the Coler-Goldwater family.”

Coler-Goldwater has developed many programs to support their employees' commitment to serving their patients, including medical interpreter certification training, Spanish classes, advanced training on culturally sensitive care, a phone interpreting system that accommodates up to 150 languages and medical glossaries in eight languages.

With a population of 2.9 million foreign born people living in the city, Coler-Goldwater's programs to support quality health care for its diverse patients are the natural result of HHC's citywide mission to provide quality healthcare to all New Yorkers.