Advancing Health Equity: Leading Care, Payment and Systems Transformation
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Accomplishments

Finding Answers was the first national program of its kind, with a specific focus on practical strategies to reduce disparities. Notable accomplishments include: 

  • Charting a Future Without Health Care Disparities. Created by the National Program Office at the end of the project's first phase, this accessible overview posits six "truths" about the difficult work of creating an evidence-based framework to improve health equity.

  • The Roadmap to Reduce Disparities. Created by the National Program Office, the Roadmap to Reduce Disparities synthesizes lessons learned from Finding Answers’ 33 grantee projects, 11 systematic reviews of the disparities-reduction literature, and technical assistance to healthcare organizations. This one-of-a-kind framework guides clinics and hospitals through the process of designing and implementing programs to reduce disparities. 
  • Systematic reviews of the disparities literature. The National Program Office along with academic partners at the University of Chicago, collaborated on 11 disease-specific disparities systematic reviews, published in three special publications: a 2007 supplement to Medical Care Research and Review, a 2009 issue of Pediatrics, and a 2012 Symposium in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

"The Program office did a really nice job of trying to synthesize and tell a cohesive story across all of the funded projects – pulling out the emergent themes and putting forth an overarching principle or framework that others could use going forward.”                                                - Romana Hasnain-Wynia, National Advisory Committee Member 

  • Overview of 30 years of disparities interventions. In 2013, the National Program Office published an analysis of three decades of disparities intervention research in Medical Care. This article built on the 2007 & 2012 systematic reviews and identified gaps in disparities intervention research and promising avenues for future research.
  • Technical assistance partnerships with national programs. Finding Answers provided technical assistance, in partnership with Aligning Forces for Quality to select health care organizations that were working to reduce racial and ethnic disparities. The program also teamed up with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and TMF Health Quality Institute to provide a series of four webinars on reducing health care disparities, shared decision-making, patient experience and care management, through the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative. 
  • Program evaluation of 33 health care organizations. Finding Answers funded the evaluation of 33 interventions around the US that aimed to reduce racial and ethnic health care disparities in the areas of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and depression. The evaluation summaries offer ideas for interventions, best practices, and what works – and doesn’t work – when reducing disparities.
  • Raise the profile of disparities on a national level via academic and social media discussions. Finding Answers has conducted many workshops, seminars, and conference presentations, including at national convenings such as SGIM, AAMC and the National Association of Community Health Centers. Moreover, the national program office hosted monthly Twitter chats, in partnership with other QI programs and organizations to generate discussion and create a platform for idea sharing, best-practices, and discussing challenges and opportunities with equity work.

 

 Past National Advisory Committee Members

The prior National Advisory Committee included the following individuals. The committee brought together diverse expertise that strengthened the program and ensured a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach.

  • John Z. Ayanian, MD, MPP, Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation at University of Michigan
  • Anne C. Beal, MD, MPH, Sanofi
  • Guillermo Bernal, University of Puerto Rico
  • Kathy L. Coltin, MPH, Independent Consultant in Performance and Measurement, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
  • Lisa Cooper, MD, MPH, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Kaytura Felix, MD, ISL Coaching, US Dept of Health & Human Services/HRSA
  • Alicia Fernandez, MD, University of California, San Francisco
  • Ralph Forquera, Seattle Indian Health Board & Urban Indian Health Institute
  • Patty Gabow, RWJF former CEO of Denver Health Hospital Authority
  • Russell Glasgow, PhD, Kaiser Permanente, Colorado
  • Rachel Gonzales-Hanson, Committee Chair, Community Health Development, Inc
  • Romana Hasnain-Wynia, MS, PhD, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute
  • Said A. Ibrahim, MD, MPH, Center for Health Equity Research & Promotion, US Dept of Veteran Affairs
  • B. Waine Kong, PhD, JD, Contributing Editor and Consultant for Black Health Matters
  • Carol Mangione, MD, MSPH, UCLA
  • Lewis G. Sandy, MD, UnitedHealth Group
  • Ho Luong Tran, MD, MPH, National Council of Asian & Pacific Islander Physicians
  • Antonia M. Villarruel, PhD, RN, FAAN, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
  • D’Nyce Williams, MD, MPH, MPA, Morehouse School of Medicine