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For the first time in the United States, there is a standard for patient care for LGBT Americans thanks to a new rating system developed by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association.

The Healthcare Equality Index (HEI) is the first step toward establishing nationwide standards to reduce discrimination against LGBT patients and their families and to ensure quality hospital-based health care.

"By publishing the Healthcare Equality Index, we not only shine a light on the top performing hospitals, but also draw attention to prejudices that GLBT Americans must face during some of their most critical moments," said Joe Solmonese, HRC's president. "With each subsequent edition of the HEI, we will move the health care industry closer to a gold standard of national policies that will improve the treatment and prevent discrimination of GLBT Americans and their families."

The HEI is modeled after HRC's extremely successful workplace project, the Corporate Equality Index, which rates corporations on a series of performance benchmarks on LGBT issues and policies. The HEI is expected to achieve similar results in the health care community by calling attention to discriminatory practices and, over time, establishing a standard of care to ensure equality of treatment.

Protecting LGBT rights has been an especially critical issue since there are few federal protections, state laws and comprehensive hospital policies to guard against discrimination and inadequate health care for LGBT patients and their families.

"The strong participation we're seeing by hospitals across the country reflects a trend within the health care industry of focusing on GLBT patients as a specific patient population with some unique needs," said Joel Ginsberg, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, which represents the nation's LGBT doctors. "We're encouraged by this because this kind of private, voluntary action is one of the most important ways we're going to be able to reduce some of the health disparities that GLBT people currently experience."

By creating a standard set of best practices that can be replicated by states, hospitals and other health care services nationwide, officials said, the HEI moves the health care industry toward policies, standards and training that ensure equal treatment for LGBT patients.