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Benchmarks overview

This article explains how Benchmarks are calculated, what factors contribute to them, and how they are used by providers and organizations to improve care delivery and health equity.

 

What are Violet Benchmarks?

Violet Benchmarks measure how well an individual provider is equipped to personalize care for patients across six populations: LGBQ, TGNC, BIPOC, Neurodivergent, Veteran, and Rural. Your initial Benchmarks represent a snapshot in time, based on the information you share when completing your profile. Because Benchmarks are dynamic, they grow as you add training, education (including work completed outside of Violet), and relevant experiences that reflect your ability to care for patients across these identities.

How are Benchmarks calculated?

Violet uses a proprietary framework designed by clinical experts and validated with providers, patients, and health care organizations. Our methodology is grounded in decades of research on patient–provider trust, identity-informed care, and health equity. It draws on established clinical models including the Culturally Competent Community Care (CCCC) Model (Kim-Godwin et al., 2001), the 3-Dimensional Puzzle Piece Model of Culturally Congruent Care (Schim et al., 2007), and the Process of Cultural Competence in the Delivery of Healthcare Services (Campinha-Bacote, 2002), while extending them to reflect modern needs for personalization and person-centered delivery.

What elements contribute to my Benchmarks?

Benchmarks draw on five core elements that reflect not just what providers know, but how they translate experience, education, and confidence into the ability to personalize care in practice.

 

The five elements of your Benchmarks:

Lived experience

Your lived experience comes from the identity details you choose to share in your profile, such as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Your own identity understandably carries the most weight in shaping your Benchmark. At the same time, close connections, like having a family member or loved one who shares that identity, also contribute. Both perspectives are important because they influence how you understand and respond to patients’ experiences.

Work experience

Your professional experience is one of the strongest indicators of your Benchmarks, so it carries the most weight. We look at the type of role you’ve held, how long you’ve been in it, and the makeup of the patient populations you’ve served. The goal is to capture not just the time you’ve spent in practice, but also the perspectives you’ve gained from the people you care for every day.

Education

Your education and training also play a major role in shaping your Benchmarks. We consider the courses, certifications, and trainings you’ve completed, whether through Violet or elsewhere, that strengthen your ability to deliver person-centered care. More recent and directly relevant learning has a greater impact, since best practices are always evolving. By including a full picture of your educational history, you show how you’ve built the knowledge to support patients across different identities and needs.

Focus areas

You can also indicate the patient groups you’d like to work with more. This plays a smaller role in your Benchmark, but it highlights your intent and points you toward opportunities to build skills and confidence in those areas.

Self-efficacy

You’ll also be asked to rate your confidence in caring for each patient group. While this factor carries less weight than your experience or education, it provides valuable insight into how prepared you feel. Confidence can influence how you approach patient interactions, and updating these ratings over time can help you track your growth as you continue learning.

How are my Benchmarks being used?

Benchmarks provide insight to you as a provider and to the organizations or health plans you work with.

For you: Benchmarks highlight your current readiness to deliver personalized, identity-informed care for different patient groups, compared with peers in your specialty. They can guide you toward areas for growth and connect you with Violet’s CE/CME-accredited courses to build new skills.

For organizations and plans: Benchmarks give visibility into how well a care team or network can meet the needs of diverse patient populations. They are used to:

  • Evaluate provider capabilities across patient groups to identify where additional support or training may be needed.
  • Collect aggregate SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) and REaL (Race, Ethnicity, and Language capabilities) data for regulatory reporting.
  • Match patients with providers who can best support their identities and lived experiences.
  • Shape strategies for organization-wide quality improvement.
  • Support reimbursement models that reward equitable, person-centered care.

This is sensitive information. Who is this visible to?

As part of our partnership with your organization, in many cases, we have collected the following information up front: first and last name, role/title, email address, and NPI number.

We understand details about your identity are very personal and we’re committed to making sure the information you share is private. The personal information you enter after you’ve accepted Violet’s invitation — your race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity is only viewable by you. We collect this data and display it in the aggregate to your sponsoring organization’s administrator so they have greater insights into the diversity of their team or network. The only information your sponsoring organization is able to access on an individual basis are the Benchmarks you’ve received, and your education progress.