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Cultural Competency May Be a Key Factor in Facilitating Care for Veterans and Their Families

• Provider cultural competency involves a level of familiarity with military and veteran culture along with a degree of comfort in working with military veterans and their families.
• Experience plays a large role in competency: Providers who work primarily in a military or VA setting were significantly more likely to meet criteria for being culturally competent (70 percent); providers who indicated they were registered within the TRICARE network were more likely to meet criteria (24 percent) than those who were not affiliated at all (8 percent).

Quality of Care Hinges on Several Factors

• High-quality care is defined as care that has been demonstrated to be effective (i.e., evidence-based), safe, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable.
• Evidence-based techniques tend to be employed more often by providers who have been extensively trained in such practices.

Overall, Few Civilian Providers Are Prepared to Serve Military Populations

• Only 13 percent of surveyed civilian providers met all the readiness criteria.
• Providers who met the threshold for cultural competency did not necessarily meet the other threshold for providing evidence-based care.
• Providers who work primarily in a military or VA setting were significantly more likely to meet all criteria than providers who do not.