Using Patient Data to Provide Equitable Care

Using Patient Data to Provide Equitable Care: "Most hospitals and health care systems collect patient race, ethnicity and primary language data, but using the data to provide equitable patient-centered care is a challenge for many. Providing equitable care—one of the six Institute of Medicine's Six Aims—is a priority as racial and socioeconomic inequity persists in health care. Leading hospitals are moving beyond data collection to analyzing and using the data to develop targeted interventions for improving care for underserved populations.

According to the 2010 National Healthcare Disparities Report released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, racial and ethnic minorities continue to receive a lower quality of care, as measured by performance on core quality measures. The 2009 NHDR notes three major implementation strategies to accelerate reduction of health care disparities:

Train health care personnel to deliver culturally and linguistically competent care for diverse populations
Raise awareness of disparities using research and data
Form partnerships to identify and test solutions"