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OVERVIEW:  The Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council last year was faced with the challenge of implementing a state requirement for race/ethnicity data reporting by health plans. The Engelberg Center provided technical support for this effort by developing consistent data collection and reporting protocols for all plans in the state.

The Montgomery County Hospital Care Equity Initiative recently partnered with the Summit Health Institute for Research and Education, Inc. (SHIRE) to develop a community engagement report examining several issues related to race/ethnicity data collection and disparities reporting among area hospitals and community organizations. A final report - available in mid-October - will serve as a tool to Montgomery County hospitals and the surrounding community striving to develop effective interventions for health and health care disparities.

Performance measurement and public reporting have been identified as potential levers to improve health care quality and reduce costs.

It is a well-known fact that the United States spends more on health care each year than any other nation — a stunning $2.4 trillion.  While much of this care has important benefits for health, Americans generally do not receive the highest quality care possible, often leading to significantly worse health and preventable costs.  According to the 2008 National Healthcare Quality Report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, “despite promising improvement in select areas, the health care system is not achieving the more substantial strides needed to close

By the year 2050, racial and ethnic minorities are projected to comprise a majority of the U.S. population; however, health and health care disparities are also increasing between majority and minority populations. In order to stem this trend, accurate data collection methods must advance in order for health care equity to ultimately increase across all race/ethnicity groups. Read More

The QASC appoints work groups to carry out assignments or projects with specific deliverables and milestones that support the goals of the QASC, and three work groups are currently focusing on a wide array of issues.

On April 15, 2009 the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council (HCQCC) unanimously approved recommendations from an expert panel organized by the Quality Alliance Steering Committee’s High-Value Health Care Project. These recommendations offer best practices in collecting and reporting race, ethnicity, and language data and will become part of the state-wide mandate that all health plans collect and report this data effective July 2009.

There are serious gaps between the health care Americans should receive and the care they actually receive. Patients get significantly different care–some better, some worse–depending on where they live and which doctors and hospitals they use. Meanwhile, the cost of care, even for patients with similar outcomes, varies significantly among providers and regions across the country. Read More

This July, the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council will mandate that all health plans report race/ethnicity/language data – which is currently only required by the state of California. While this new MA mandate promotes data collection, little is known about how to develop statewide regulations to ensure standardization and consistency across the health plans and other health care organizations collecting and reporting the data.