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1.
What exactly is meant by “racial and ethnic disparities in health
care”?
2. How do we know that African Americans and Hispanics
receive lower-quality health care than their white counterparts?
3. What is the National Health Plan Collaborative
and who is a part of it?
4. How did the members of the Collaborative come
together?
5. What are the goals of the Collaborative?
6. What did the Collaborative complete in its first phase of work?
7. What are Collaborative members currently working
on?
8. Who is providing the Collaborative with the
resources it needs to do its work?
9. What will the Collaborative share when its Phase Two work is done?
10. If the problem of racial and ethnic disparities
in health care has been well documented for more than 20 years, why didn’t
this group come together sooner?
11. So
you’re saying the member health plans are collecting race and
ethnicity data? Isn’t that inappropriate? Shouldn’t all patients
receive the same health care—regardless of race, ethnicity or gender?
12. How
is the Collaborative working with others who it says have a role
in addressing the problem of racial and ethnic disparities in health care,
such as health care providers and policy-makers?
13. Aren’t
racial and ethnic disparities in health care delivery just one more problem
in an all-around flawed health care system?
14.
Is there anything patients can do to help ensure they receive the highest
quality of care?
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1. What exactly is meant by
“racial and ethnic disparities in health care”?
Racial and ethnic disparities in health care refer to the measurable differences
in the specific medical treatment that is provided to people in the United States
based on their race and ethnicity.
Although the quality of health care is poor for many Americans, specific racial
and ethnic groups continue to experience worse quality care than their white counterparts.
Evidence of these disparities in treatment is strongest for African Americans and
Hispanics in the United States but is also growing for Native Americans.
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2.
How do we know that African Americans and Hispanics receive lower-quality
health care than their white counterparts?
In 2002, the nonpartisan and well-respected Institute of Medicine issued
a groundbreaking report entitled “Unequal Treatment,” which
provided indisputable evidence that racial and ethnic minorities were
more likely to receive lower-quality care than whites.
Numerous subsequent research studies indicate that three years later
little has been achieved in reducing these disparities.
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3.
What is the National Health Plan Collaborative and who is a part of it?
The National Health Plan Collaborative is a groundbreaking project working
to identify ways in which the quality of health care can be improved for
racially and ethnically diverse patient populations. It brings together
major health insurance companies and works in partnership with organizations
from the public and private sectors. The Collaborative includes Aetna, Boston Medical Center HealthNet Plan,
CIGNA, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, HealthPartners, Highmark Inc., Humana, Kaiser
Permanente, Molina Healthcare, UnitedHealth Group (UnitedHealthcare, Ovations
and AmeriChoice) and WellPoint, Inc.
Beginning in October 2008, the National Health Plan Collaborative activities are coordinated and led by America’s Health Insurance Plans.
The National Health Plan Collaborative received initial funding support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). It was managed by the Center for Health Care Strategies in coordination with the RAND Corporation from December 2004 to September 2008.
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4.
How did the members of the Collaborative come together?
The National Health Plan Collaborative was initiated by key health plan
leaders who recognized racial and ethnic disparities in health care as
a crucial issue to address.
Following the Institute of Medicine’s release of “Unequal
Treatment,” which heightened public interest in the subject of health
care disparities, the Collaborative was positioned to move forward in
implementing strategies to address the problem. The activities of the
Collaborative were further strengthened by the help and guidance of the
sponsoring and assisting organizations.
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5.
What are the goals of the Collaborative?
The goals of the Collaborative are to:
- Collect racial, ethnic, and language data to inform disparity reduction efforts within their respective memberships
- Improve health care access and quality by enhancing language services for patients whose primary language is not English
- Support investments in disparities reduction by making a business case for addressing disparities
- Improve knowledge management and dissemination of disparities-related information
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6.
What did the Collaborative complete in its first phase of work?
During Phase I of the Collaborative, plans conducted a number of pilot programs aimed at improving data collection and analysis to help plans identify and address disparities. Some plans tested methods of collecting data directly from enrollees while others focused on indirect methods that looked at the geographic location of enrollees as well as their last names to provide a rough marker of their racial and ethnic characteristics. Data was then linked to previously collected information on the quality of care for specific conditions to inform where disparities in care exist between racial and ethnic groups. Several plans tested ways to reduce language-related barriers to quality care by targeting plan staff, providers, and enrollees.
The Collaborative also released a summary report reflecting its Phase One work in November 2006. The report shared lessons learned and best practices with other health care decision-makers and leaders to help build a foundation for solutions to the problem of racial and ethnic disparities in health care.
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7.
What are Collaborative members currently working on?
Participating health insurance companies
are exploring interventions aimed at communities, providers and other
stakeholders. The Collaborative works
to engage other health care decision-makers, such as major health care
purchasers, health care providers and policy-makers, to join ongoing efforts
to find solutions to racial and ethnic disparities in health care.
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8.
Who is providing the Collaborative with the resources it needs to do its
work?
The National Health Plan Collaborative activities are coordinated and led by America’s Health Insurance Plans.
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9.
What will the Collaborative share when its Phase Two work is done?
The Collaborative plans to release a Phase Two Summary Report and toolkit containing lessons learned, tools and recommendations from the Collaborative’s two phases of work.
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10. If the
problem of racial and ethnic disparities in health care has been well
documented for more than 20 years, why didn’t this group come together
sooner?
The problem of racial and ethnic disparities in health care has been around for a long time. Research conducted over the last 20 years has demonstrated the pervasive extent of the problem.
Based on this research, in 2002 the Institute of Medicine called on health insurance plans to collect, report and monitor patient care data to help find solutions to the problem of racial and ethnic disparities in care. Health insurance plans and others involved with the Collaborative took this call to action to heart and made a collective commitment to help find solutions to this unacceptable problem.
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11. So you’re
saying the member health plans are collecting race and ethnicity data?
Isn’t that inappropriate? Shouldn’t all patients receive the
same health care—regardless of race, ethnicity or gender?
Yes, patients should receive the same level of high-quality care—regardless
of race, ethnicity or gender. However, it is virtually impossible to measure
and evaluate the level of care that certain groups within our networks
are receiving without collecting this information.
Experts believe that a crucial way to address and reduce racial and ethnic
gaps in treatment is to improve the collection and tracking of patient
data by race and ethnicity, evaluate whether specific patient populations
are not getting the recommended standard of care, and design interventions
that will consistently improve the quality of care for all patients, especially
those most at risk of receiving lower-quality care.
The Collaborative hopes to do exactly
that.
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12. How is
the Collaborative working with others who it says have a role in
addressing the problem of racial and ethnic disparities in health care,
such as health care providers and policy-makers?
The National Health Plan Collaborative works to engage other health care decision-makers, such as major health care purchasers, health care providers and policy-makers—one-on-one and collectively—to join ongoing efforts to find solutions to racial and ethnic disparities in health care.
The Collaborative will also share strategies and lessons learned from its work with these and other health care decision-makers and leaders.
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13. Aren’t
racial and ethnic disparities in health care delivery just one more problem
in an all-around flawed health care system?
Although the quality of health care is poor for many Americans, specific
racial and ethnic groups continue to experience worse quality health care
than white patients. Although the quality of care a patient receives often
varies depending on social and economic factors, such as geographic location
and health insurance status, numerous research studies show that African
Americans and Hispanics are likely to receive a lower quality of treatment
than their white counterparts—even when health coverage and income
levels are equal.
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14.
Is there anything patients can do to help ensure they receive the highest
quality of care?
As with any patient-physician interaction, we always stress that patients should do everything they can to make sure they are well-informed. This includes learning as much as they can about their illness or condition, not hesitating to ask lots of questions of their physicians, and adhering to follow-up care instructions provided by their physicians.
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