Health Across Cultures

As part of our commitment to quality health care, we have developed a program to increase awareness of racial and ethnic disparities and also implement initiatives to address these disparities. Our plan to address these disparities is based on recommendations of The Institute of Medicine (IOM)'s 2002 report entitled: Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. The IOM study committee defines disparities in health care as "racial or ethnic differences in the quality of health care that are not due to access-related factors or clinical needs, preferences, and appropriateness of intervention." ¹

Our program is comprised of the activities listed below.

1. Promote the consistency and equity of care through the use of evidence-based guidelines and monitor member and physician compliance with the guidelines.
2. Structure payment systems to ensure an adequate supply of services to minority patients, and limit provider incentives that may promote disparities.
3. Enhance patient-provider communication and trust by providing financial incentives for practices that reduce barriers and encourage evidence-based practice.
4. Promote the use of interpretation services where community need exists and provides such services to our members and physicians.
5. Support implementation of multidisciplinary treatment and preventive care teams consisting of a variety of health professionals such as physicians, nurses, dietitians, and social workers.
6. Implement patient education programs to increase patients' knowledge of how to best access care and participate in treatment decisions.
7. Work to integrate cross-cultural education into the partnerships with our network of health professionals.
8. Collect and report data on health care access and utilization by patients' race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and education level.
9. Include measures of racial and ethnic disparities in performance measurement.
10. Monitor progress toward the elimination of health care disparities.

Tools to Help You In Your Efforts to Address Disparities

¹ "Unequal Treatment" Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care", Institute of Medicine, The National Academies Press, Washington DC, 2002.