Improved accuracy and reliability of patient race, ethnicity, and preferred language data collection and reporting could help physicians better understand and address health care disparities in ambulatory clinical practices. The Commission to End Health Care Disparities discussed its plans to achieve better data collection and reporting at the National Minority Quality Forum 2014 Summit held this week in Washington, D.C.
Representatives from the commission attended the forum to discuss the role of professional medical societies in addressing health care disparities, including the development of a toolkit that would focus on better data collection and reporting. The toolkit will focus on the ambulatory setting because that’s where patients most often receive care for chronic medical conditions, such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes, a focus of the commission’s work.
“Improving outcomes for these complex conditions will require a combination of strategies, from clinical care redesign to public health advocacy to greater cooperation between clinical care teams, patients’ families and the community,” said commission co-chair and AMA Immediate-Past President Jeremy A. Lazarus, MD, said at the forum. “The commission is in a unique position to make a significant, favorable impact on health outcomes.”
Staff at the AMA (one of the founding-member organizations of the commission) proposed working with the Chicago Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center on a toolkit to improve the integration of data collection and reporting into the ambulatory workflow. The toolkit will aid in the stratification and interpretation of clinical performance by race, ethnicity and preferred language for at least one Physician Quality Reporting System measure.
“To start off, we will harvest best practices and lessons learned from two or three high performing ambulatory clinical practices that have improved the accuracy and reliability of race, ethnicity, and preferred language data collection and reporting,” said Omar Hasan, MBBS, vice president of improving health outcomes at the AMA. “We have developed a survey instrument for this purpose. It is currently under review by content experts from the commission.”
The commission expects to have results of the pilot within the year, Dr. Hasan said.
The toolkit is part of the commission’s newly redefined strategic plan, which includes three goals:
- Its first goal is to improve data collection and promote stratification of quality reporting to focus on local quality improvement efforts to reduce disparities.
- The commission also will focus on diversity promotion in the health care workforce and leadership development for underrepresented minorities. The group is beginning to develop a health rotation for medical students from underrepresented minorities at the AMA headquarters. Participants would work at the AMA while also attending lectures and learning from high-level thinkers.
- Finally, in its third goal to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in prevention, control, and outcomes for hypertension and type 2 diabetes, the commission is joining with the AMA’s Improving Health Outcomes initiative. Results from the AMA’s pilot programs to prevent type 2 diabetes and hypertension will inform the commission’s work to address these chronic diseases at the local level.
The AMA, the National Medical Association and the National Hispanic Medical Association work together to lead the Commission, of which more than 70 organizations are members. The groups collaborate to increase awareness of health disparities among physicians and health professions and use evidence-based strategies to advocate for action and eliminate health disparities.
