Improving the quality and cost-effectiveness of publicly financed health care
Reducing Disparities at the Practice Site
Related Resources
- Transforming Small High-Volume Medicaid Practices to Reduce Disparities in Care: Recent Advances and Future Opportunities
- Practice Supports: Using Care Managers and Quality Improvement Coaches to Transform Medicaid Primary Care
- Leveraging Medicaid to Encourage HIT Adoption and Strengthen Primary Care
- The Affordable Care Act: Opportunities for Medicaid to Advance Ambulatory Care Quality
- Reducing Disparities at the Practice Site: Front-line Perspectives
- Models for Improving Medicaid Primary Care: Lessons for Health Reform
- Supporting “Meaningful Use” of HIT in Small, High-Volume Medicaid Practices
- Practice Transformation in Medicaid: Five Levers to Strengthen Small, “High-Volume, High-Opportunity” Practices
- Improving Chronic Care in Small, “High-Opportunity” Primary Care Practices
- Reducing Disparities at the Practice Site: Highlights of the Second National Meeting
- The Relationship between Practice Size and Quality of Care in Medicaid
- Using Data to Identify High-Volume, High-Opportunity Practice Sites: A Medicaid Primer
Small provider practices play a critical role in caring for Medicaid beneficiaries, particularly those who are racially and ethnically diverse. The Reducing Disparities at the Practice Site initiative was developed by CHCS to support quality improvement in small practices serving this population. The three-year project helped Medicaid agencies and health plans partner with small practices to reduce racial and ethnic disparities and improve overall outcomes.
Reducing Disparities at the Practice Site sought to test the leverage that Medicaid agencies, health plans, primary care case management programs and other community-based organizations have for improving chronic care at small practices serving racially and ethnically diverse beneficiaries. These stakeholders can play a critical role in facilitating and sustaining improvements in care by providing practice sites with:
- Data;
- Technology;
- Care management resources;
- Quality improvement training; and
- Capital.
State-led teams in Michigan, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania helped to build the quality infrastructure and care management capacity of "high-opportunity" primary care practices. With technical support from CHCS and experts in the field, teams helped practice sites implement interventions focused on:
- Tracking patients and outcomes using an electronic data management tool;
- Adopting evidence-based guidelines for targeted chronic conditions; and
- Incorporating team-based care into ongoing practice operations.