Reducing Healthcare Disparities

Breaking the ice can be complicated! How can hospitals and health systems create trusting environments that make interactions between patients and health care providers more comfortable and inclusive? Join Keith Stinson, RN and emergency department nursing director at Chatham Hospital, serving a…

Individuals who are blind or visually impaired present unique health communications needs as they seek to access and act upon health information.

Read the HRET Disparities Toolkit FAQ.

View more helpful resources for collecting race, ethnicity and language data from patients.

Effective communication for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing is particularly critical in health care where miscommunication may lead to misdiagnosis and improper or delayed treatment.

Collaboration can help you better align resources with needs, reduce competition, increase effectiveness, and make your results more sustainable.

The training should provide information about why it is important to collect these data, how to collect data, and how to answer questions or address concerns from patients.

Ultimately, hospitals and other health care organizations need to be responsive to the communities they serve. A first step toward accomplishing this goal is understanding who the community is and working collaboratively to address problems and concerns.

We recommend that health care organizations/health plans provide a rationale for why they are asking patients/enrollees for information about their demographic and communications background.

Recent implementation of the PPACA now mandates certain standards for data collections in all national population health surveys.