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One of the primary goals of the Disparities Solutions Center is to provide education and leadership training to develop a national network of skilled individuals dedicated to eliminating racial/ethnic disparities in health care. Through the Disparities Leadership Program we hope to move this from a goal to a reality.
----Joseph R. Betancourt, MD, MPH
Director, The Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital |
The Institute of Medicine Reports Crossing the Quality Chasm and Unequal Treatment highlight the critical nexus between improving quality and eliminating racial/ethnic disparities in health care. Combined, they provide a blueprint for addressing disparities that can only be achieved if a concerted, coordinated effort towards health systems change can be achieved. This will require leaders in quality improvement who have the tools and skills to move their organizations forward toward the elimination of racial/ethnic disparities in care.
The Disparities Leadership Program
The Disparities Leadership Program (DLP) is a year-long executive education program designed for leaders from hospitals, health plans and other health care organizations who want to implement practical strategies to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care, particularly through quality improvement. The DLP has two overarching goals:
- To create a cadre of leaders in health care equipped with a) in-depth knowledge of the field of disparities, including root causes and research to date; b) cutting-edge quality improvement strategies for identifying and addressing disparities; and c) the leadership skills to implement these strategies and help transform their organizations.
- To help individuals from organizations—who may be at the beginning stages or in the middle of developing or implementing an action plan or project to address disparities—further advance or improve their work in a customized, tailored fashion.
The DLP faculty will consist of a team of leaders who are action-oriented and have practical experience implementing organizational and quality improvement strategies aimed at eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care. It will focus particularly on the lessons learned and expertise gained from the development and evolution of programs currently in place at the Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as at several leading health plans across the country. The DLP will be led by national experts from The Disparities Solutions Center (DSC) at Massachusetts General Hospital.
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This program is jointly sponsored by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and supoorted by Joint Commission Resources (JCR), an affiliate of the Joint Commission.
The Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital is dedicated to developing and implementing strategies to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care through innovative policy and practice. Created and led by Dr. Joseph Betancourt, the DSC is made up of a multidisciplinary team of health care professionals with expertise in the area of racial/ethnic data collection, performance measurement and reporting, disparities interventions, and evaluation. The DSC strives to:
- Serve as a change agent by developing new research and translating innovative research findings into policy and practice
- Develop and evaluate customized policy and practice solutions for health care providers, insurers, educators, community organizations and other stakeholders
- Provide education and leadership training to expand the community of skilled individuals dedicated to eliminating health care disparities
The DSC has significant, practical, real-world experience in the area of addressing racial/ethnic disparities in health care. For example, the leadership of the DSC has worked with several leading health plans across the country (Aetna, Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Florida, among others) to develop strategies to identify and eliminate disparities.In addition, DSC faculty have staffed the Massachusetts General Hospital Committee on Racial and Ethnic Disparities, pioneering activities such as the Disparities  Dashboard, an innovative way to identify and monitor disparities, as well as the development of a culturally competent diabetes disease management program. This experience, along with the active role the DSC faculty have played in the now well-recognized effort among Boston hospitals to eliminate disparities under the leadership of Mayor Menino, uniquely positions them to provide training to those interested in addressing disparities through quality improvement. |
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The DLP is designed for leaders from hospitals, health plans, physician organizations, community health centers, and other health care organizations that want to implement strategies to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Participants may include, but are not limited to: executive leadership, medical directors, directors of quality, and directors of multicultural affairs or community benefits. To maximize the benefits of the year-long DLP, participants should have strong commitment from their organization, as well as resources available, to advance an action plan to address disparities. Teams of two participants per organization are encouraged, though not required.
- The Institute of Medicine's landmark report Crossing the Quality Chasm highlighted equity as one of the essential pillars of health care quality. For an organization to improve quality for all patients it must be able to measure disparities by race/ethnicity and develop interventions to address them.
- The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) are beginning to incorporate issues of race, culture, and language into their standards for hospitals and health plans. The DLP will help health care leaders put their organizations ahead of the curve on this important emerging issue.
- Eliminating disparities in health care requires leadership, vision, teamwork, and an understanding of the issues and potential intervention strategies. The DLP is designed to build participants' knowledge and skills in these essential areas while developing a network of leaders focused on the same goals.
- Between now and the year 2050, racial/ethnic minorities will account for 90% of the projected increase in the U.S. population. Thus, most new growth in the health care market will come from minorities. Addressing racial/ethnic disparities in care with help health care organizations gain a competitive edge in a changing market.
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The DLP has four major activities:
- Formal Skills Curriculum
The DLP will begin with a two-day intensive training session focused on defining disparities and root causes; developing cutting-edge quality improvement strategies to identify and address disparities; and fostering leadership skills to implement these strategies and help transform their organizations. Faculty will include national experts at the DSC, leadership from the MGH, and other hand-selected leaders from health plans who are at the cutting-edge of the disparities field. Some of the topics covered during the training include:
- Getting Disparities on the Leadership Agenda: Building the will among leaders in the organization to become invested in identifying and addressing racial/ethnic disparities in health care, including through the presentation of the business and quality case for addressing this issue.
- Where to Begin: Tools and activities to help organizations get started with efforts to identify and address disparities, including the strategies, techniques and technology for collecting race/ethnicity data.
- Creating Disparities Measures and Reporting Mechanisms: Guidance on how to stratify quality measures by race/ethnicity, and report them appropriately via dashboards, scorecards, or other standard or innovative mechanisms.
- Adding the Community, Patient, and Staff Voice to the Disparities Agenda: Strategies for bringing in key perspectives to disparities and patient safety work, including those of the community, the patient, and the health care staff.
- Developing Disparities Interventions: Developing and implementing innovative approaches to address disparities organizationally and through quality improvement.
- Making Systems Responsive to the Needs of Diverse Populations: Review of tools to improve the cultural competency of the health care delivery system and capacity to address the needs of patients with limited-English.
- Communicating Broadly and Clearly: Developing an approach to communicating the issue of disparities both internally (board, leadership, staff, etc.) and externally (to the public).
- Assuring Sustainability: How to assure pilot programs become standard practice within the organization and how to disseminate successes broadly.
2. Disparities Project
 The DLP is seeking to stimulate and promote
efforts/projects designed specifically to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care within health care organizations. As a condition of entry, participants in the DLP must be at the beginning stages or in the middle of developing or implementing an action plan or project to address disparities. They must propose the ways in which they would like to advance this work over the course of the year through participation in the DLP. Again, participants can be in various stages of development in their program, ranging from
developing a strategic plan to evaluating disparities
interventions. Examples of the types of projects
considered include:
- Creating a strategic plan to begin addressing racial/ethnic disparities
- Implementing a system to collect patient's race/ethnicity and language data
- Stratifying and reporting quality data by race/ethnicity
- Developing a culturally competent disease management program
- Evaluating a disparities intervention
- Expanding disparities interventions across conditions and populations
3. Technical Assistance
The DSC will work with DLP participants to achieve their disparities project goals through various modalities of technical assistance, including three interactive conference calls for the entire group, and two web seminars on additional learning topics tailored to the most pressing needs of participants. Participants will also be invited to participate in other DSC activities on an on-going basis (such as teleconferences on current disparities issues, additional web seminars, etc.) as part of the DLP network.
4. Closing Session, Group Learning and Dissemination
The DLP will culminate with a two-day closing meeting where participants will present their work and lessons learned. They will also have the opportunity to network with and learn from like-minded peers at this time and over the course of the project year. DLP participants will receive continuing education credits, as well as a certificate for completing the program. All DLP projects will be highlighted on the DSC website (www.mghdisparitiessolutions.org) and in DSC brochures. Some may be featured in web seminars and case studies published and distributed by the DSC. Two projects will be chosen to receive an award for innovation and success and will be featured in press releases about the DLP. A selection of projects may have the opportunity to present their work at national meetings on quality including Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s National Forum on Health Care Quality (www.IHI.org).
While we anticipate being able to accommodate most applicants to the DLP, we are limiting the program to 40 individual applicants per year (approximately 15-20 organizations). In order to ensure the success of the program we will review applications based on the following criteria:
- Level of organizational commitment to the applicants' efforts as measured by
- Letter of support signed by a member of senior leadership or board of the applicant’s organization authorizing release time to commit to the DLP and support for tuition and travel expenses (templates will be provided)
- Resources available (time and financial) to start or advance the applicants' efforts
- Commitment and ability of applicant/team to address racial/ethnic disparities at their organizations as described in the short essay responses
- Professional position and capacity of the applicant/team to move their organizations forward towards identifying and eliminating racial/ethnic disparities
Note: Preference will be given to organizations that can send at least a two-person team (individuals are still encouraged to apply).
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| February 15, 2008 |
Intent to Apply due |
| March 14, 2008 |
Application Due |
| April 16, 2008 |
Applicants will receive notification of admissions decisions |
| May 29-30, 2008 |
Two day opening meeting in Boston, MA, at Hotel @ MIT |
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Joseph R. Betancourt, MD, MPH
Director, The Disparities Solutions Center
Senior Scientist, MGH Institute for Health Policy;
Faculty, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Betancourt’s interests include cross-cultural medicine, minority recruitment into the health professions, and minority health and health policy research. He has served as principal investigator on grants from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Commonwealth Fund, and on several Institute of Medicine committees, including those that produced Unequal Treatment and Guidance for a National Health Care Disparities Report. He co-chairs the MGH Committee on Racial and Ethnic Disparities, has served on the Massachusetts State Disparities Committee and co-chaired the Boston Public Health Commission's Disparities Subcommittee on Quality Improvement.
Alexander R. Green, MD, MPH
Senior Faculty, The Disparities Solutions Center
Senior Scientist, MGH Institute for Health Policy
Faculty, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Green’s work centers on culturally competent approaches to quality improvement, clinician biases as root causes of racial and ethnic disparities in health care, and cultural competence. He has served on expert panels and advisory boards including the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations’ Hospitals, Language, and Culture project, and he co-chairs the Culturally Competent Care Steering Committee at Harvard Medical School.
Roderick K. King, MD, MPH
Senior Faculty, The Disparities Solutions Center
Faculty, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Dr. King’s academic and consulting activities focus on leadership and organizational development in community-based organizations, social entrepreneurship to promote change, health workforce planning, diversity and cultural competence, and social determinants of health disparities. He has considerable federal experience, most recently as Director of the Health Resources and Services Administration and as a Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service.
Additional Faculty:
Faculty for the 2008-2009 Disparities Leadership Program has yet to be determined - check back soon for an updated list. Examples of faculty who participated in the 2007-2008 Program include: Peter Slavin, MD, President of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Troy Brennan, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Aetna, Inc., Deborah Washington, RN, PhDc, Director, Diversity, Patient Care Services at MGH, John Auerbach, MBA, Commissioner of Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Gregg Meyer, MD, Senior Vice President for Quality and Patient Safety, Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, MGH, Thomas Lampone, MD, Corporate Medical Director at Blue Cross Blue Shield Florida, Joel Weissman, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Institute for Health Policy at MGH, Elizabeth Lowy, RN, BSN, Quality Management Manager, Health Care Equality, National Quality Management at Aetna Inc., and Elizabeth Mort, MD, MPH, Associate Chief Medical Officer, Vice President of MGH.
Disparities Solutions Center staff:
Aswita Tan-McGrory, MSPH - Operations Manager - Aswita completed 5 years as the Women's Health Program Coordinator at the Office for Women, Family and Community Programs at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Prior to joining Brigham and Women's Hospital, she worked with homeless elders, and in HIV prevention as an HIV testing counselor. She received her Masters of Science in Public Health with a concentration in parasitology after she spent 2 years in rural Nigeria, West Africa, on water sanitation and Guinea Worm Eradication projects with the Peace Corps.
Elizabeth Donahue -Project Associate - Elizabeth joined the Center after completing a Bachelor of Arts with dual concentrations in history and communications at Boston College. As an undergraduate research assistant, Elizabeth worked on projects that studied the effects of interpersonal control tactics on mental health outcomes and nonverbal communication behaviors in conversations about physical and mental health. She has completed internships in grant and public policy research with the Office of Congressman Barney Frank and in human resources with WCVB-TV. Elizabeth has also been involved in several volunteer programs, most recently with Amor Ministries in Tijuana, Mexico.
Wanda Vega - Program Assistant - Wanda recently completed four years with the Clinical Care Management Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital, which provides the infrastructure necessary for MGH to analyze and improve the quality and efficiency of its clinical services. She transferred to the Clinical Care Management Unit from the Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology's (CIMIT), where she coordinated The Forum, a vital tool used to create collaborations for patient benefit. Prior to working at MGH, Wanda completed ten years of government service with the Environmental Protection Agency.
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Tuition is due upon acceptance as a member of the Disparities Leadership Program and is $9,500 per applicant*. This covers all program activities (two two-day training sessions—one in Boston, MA, the other in a location to be determined; conference calls, web seminars, and program materials) as well two night hotel stays and meals at the opening and closing session. Participants are responsible for all travel costs to and from the sessions.
*Operational costs for this program have been defrayed by the generous support of an unrestricted educational grant from Merck and Co., Inc.
Full and partial scholarships may be available for individuals and teams. If you are interested in receiving a scholarship, please attach a brief letter to your completed application, explaining your need for financial assistance and the amount requested.
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Physicians
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the Disparities Solution Center. NCQA is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
NCQA designates this educational activity for a maximum of 20.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Nurses
This program for 20.0 contact hours is provided by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, which is accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation.
To successfully complete this activity and receive CME or CNE credit, you must:
- sign the participant roster,
- remain for the entire program, and
- complete and submit a program evaluation.
A certificate of completion specifying applicable credits will be available for each participant after the program.
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At the conclusion of this program, the learner will be able to:
1. Identify ways to secure buy in by having health care leaders better understand the issues of disparities and become invested in doing something to address them.
2. List techniques and technology for race and ethnicity data collection and disparities performance measurement.
3. Identify interventions to reduce disparities in health care.
4. Identify ways to message the issue of disparities both internally and externally.
5. Describe a concrete step that their organization will take toward the elimination of racial/ethnic disparities in care.
The Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) considers all applicants and program participants without regard to race, color, national origin, age, religious creed, sex or sexual orientation. MGH is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We encourage participation by all individuals. If you need any of the auxiliary aids or services identified in the Americans with Disabilities Act, please describe your particular needs in writing and include it with your application.
Please submit any cancellation or withdrawal in writing. If you cancel by April 15, 2007, tuition will be returned less a 25% processing fee. Cancellations made after April 15, 2007 will not be refunded their tuition.
The Application for the 2008-2009 Program has not yet been released. Please refer back to this part of the website after October 15th.
Deadline for full application is March 14, 2008.
If you have any questions, please contact us at:
The Disparities Solutions Center, MGH Institute for Health Policy
50 Staniford Street, 9th Floor, Suite 901
Boston, MA 02114
Email: disparitiessolutions@partners.org
Phone: (617) 724-7658
Fax: (617) 726-4120
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