Partnership to advance integrating race, ethnicity, and primary language data with national clinical performance measures to improve health care

Improving the quality of care for everyone is one of the most critical challenges facing the health care system. Evidence indicates that quality improvement efforts, when linked to key demographic data such as race, ethnicity, language, literacy, acculturation, and socioeconomic status, can improve the quality of care for everyone and reduce disparities for the most vulnerable populations. Many also believe that health information technology (HIT) will be an important tool to help improve the quality of health care. Foundation staff is exploring the potential of HIT as a potent tool to reduce racial and ethnic care disparities. This grant supports the collection and integration of patient demographic information, including race and ethnicity, into the Electronic Health Record System from a consortium of community health centers. This work will link clinical performance measures developed by the American Medical Association with key patient demographic data to identify disparities in performance and inform quality improvement efforts. The deliverables for this project include: (1) a report synthesizing the findings of the case studies, (2) a report analyzing the feasibility of linking patient demographic information to clinical quality of care measures in an ambulatory care setting, and (3) a series of peer reviewed publications and presentations at national conferences.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $192,307.00

Awarded on: 9/7/2005

Time frame: 9/15/2005 - 9/14/2007

Grant Number: 51071