Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012
For Minority Physicians
November is American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month
What began as an effort to gain a day of recognition for the significant contributions the first Americans made to the establishment and growth of the United States has resulted in the month of November being designated for that purpose.
Today, November is recognized as American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month, a time when millions of Americans learn more about the history, achievements and contemporary lives of American Indians and Alaska Natives. This year's theme is "Native Families Moving Ahead: Together We Strengthen Our Nations." Additionally, Nov. 23 was observed as Native American Heritage Day. Visit the Indian Health Service website to learn more about American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month.
The AMA Minority Affairs Section (MAS) would like to hear about how physicians and medical students observed National Native American Heritage Month. Selected stories will be featured on the AMA-MAS Web page. Email your story today.
New quality measures focus on disparities, cultural competency
The National Quality Forum (NQF) recently endorsed 12 new quality measures pertaining to disparities and cultural competency, seven of which came from an AMA resource designed to help hospitals and large group practices meet the needs of a diverse patient population.
The resource, the Communication Climate Assessment Toolkit, is an assessment toolkit that can be used to evaluate organizational performance in communication. Assessment results provide a reliable means of tracking performance over time and guiding decisions about tailoring quality improvement interventions.
New NQF quality measures from the AMA's toolkit focus on health literacy, language services, workforce development and cross-cultural communication, among others.
"We created this tool to help organizations evaluate and improve their communication with a diverse patient population, and we are proud that measures included in this toolkit have received NQF endorsement," AMA President Jeremy A. Lazarus, MD, said in a news release.
NQF-endorsed measures go through an in-depth, rigorous process in which national experts determine that the measure meets certain criteria, including scientific acceptability, reliability and usability, among other criteria.
Visit the NQF website to view the list of new quality measures.
