NCQA Launches Race/Ethnicity Stratification Learning Network
The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) has launched the Race and Ethnicity Stratification Learning Network, a free, interactive, online tool that offers data and best practices to help health plans improve how they collect race and ethnicity data on their enrollees.
The data available in this new resource summarize the care of 20 million people enrolled in 14 health plans that reported results on five HEDIS measures, stratified by race and ethnicity. Best practices on the site come from NCQA’s qualitative interviews of key staff at the 14 plans that compose the learning network.
“Organizations are devoting substantial resources to support health equity, and many are eager to learn how to collect and leverage data to narrow health disparities,” said Eric Schneider, M.D., NCQA’s executive vice president, Quality Measurement and Research Group, in a statement. “This network provides a first look at performance variation by race and ethnicity, and advice on how to collect necessary data. No one has seen these quantitative and qualitative resources in one place before, and all of us at NCQA are encouraged that this information can advance health equity.”
As part of its efforts to advance health equity through quality measurement, NCQA said it began implementing race and ethnicity stratification to HEDIS measures in Measurement Year (MY) 2022, and continues to expand the number of measures with this stratification. While organizations have begun devoting resources to supporting stratification, many stakeholders have voiced questions regarding how to best collect and leverage this data, the organization explained. The Race and Ethnicity Stratification Learning Network was an initiative created to provide insights into healthcare organizations and their ability to report on the first five stratified HEDIS measures, and answer key questions around the collection and use of race and ethnicity data for quality improvement purposes.
The main goals are:
• Providing a first look at trends in health plan performance variation by race and ethnicity;
• Evaluating the state of race and ethnicity data and feasibility of reporting on the stratification; and
• Identifying and sharing best practices and strategies plans have employed to integrate the stratification and how it has informed quality improvement initiatives.
NCQA partnered with 14 health plans from across the country who shared insights on their journeys with harnessing race and ethnicity information by submitting data on a subset of stratified HEDIS measures and participating in interviews with NCQA to share how they have integrated the stratification into their processes. During the interviews plans described how they collect and manage race and ethnicity data, as well as their successes, challenges they had to overcome and best practices they identified in working the stratification into their systems to inform quality improvement efforts.
Earlier this month, Healthcare Innovation spoke with Schneider about NCQA's work on health equity issues.
“In terms of social needs screening and intervention, we have a measure that's in the field,” he said. “We actually think it's important for intervention to be linked to the screening because simply screening and reporting how many people have a need doesn't really solve the need. It is a step that creates some transparency, but we also have concerns about how that data will be recorded and whether people will be honest. There are a lot of difficulties in collecting some of the information — about interpersonal violence, for example. It's not something you just ask on a survey and you're done. It needs a high level of trust. But I think the concept is right and we're moving in the right direction. We looked across the field and there are probably a dozen or more different screening instruments that organizations are using. We got codes for those so that they can be represented in electronic data systems, and will start to create some standardization around the social needs screening and intervention measures. We expect we'll be able to align on digital definitions as well. There's an effort called Sync for Social Needs where the three quality organizations —National Quality Forum, Joint Commission and NCQA — have come together to create better alignment on a digital standard.”
