To address concerns about the poor quality—and equality—of American health care, Expecting Success: Excellence in Cardiac Care, is helping 10 hospitals measure the quality of cardiac treatment they provide to patients based on their race, ethnicity and primary language. While simultaneously working to improve the quality of care for all heart patients, the hospitals are, for the first time, tracking and analyzing data to learn more about their patients and determine whether disparities exist in the care they provide.

According to this issue brief, collecting data on patient race, ethnicity and primary language can help hospitals improve the quality of their care and reduce racial and ethnic disparities. Expecting Success staff and participants from the hospitals say that much more coordination between hospitals, primary care providers and community service agencies is needed to improve the quality of hospital and ambulatory care provided to heart patients. Nevertheless, they say collecting this data on patients in the hospital has been a giant step.

The nation's first multihospital collaborative focused on reducing disparities, Expecting Success is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation national program.