Approximately one in three U.S. residents is a minority. As the country's minority population continues to increase, hospitals will need to ensure they are providing high-quality, equitable care to all patients in order to succeed and thrive.

Numerous studies document disparities in the care delivered to White, African-American and Hispanic patients—even when income, education level, insurance status and other demographic and socioeconomic differences are eliminated. Yet most hospitals, health systems and providers deny such disparities exist within their organizations.

This educational video and PowerPoint presentation for providers from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the Center for Health Care Quality at the George Washington University Medical Center assesses the important problem disparities in health care and explores ways providers can identify and work to reduce them. It examines the definition of health care disparities and academic evidence of its existence as well as the lessons that experience in the fields of quality improvement and cardiovascular care can provide in reducing it. Finally, the video presents tested solutions from Expecting Success, a previous RWJF-funded initiative to study and reduce health care disparities in diverse hospitals across the country.