Implement Change
These resources are geared primarily toward organizations that provide direct clinical care and want to identify and reduce disparities in health and health care for their patients.
Roadmap to Reduce Disparities
This step-by-step framework provides structure and guidance for building a culture of equity and implementing equity interventions. Its foundational principles are adaptable to different organizations, patient populations, and communities. The Roadmap Exercises (see table) for each step will help you translate principles into action for your organization.
Strategies
Our strategy overview papers & webinars give practical implementation strategies to reduce disparities by considering how cultural competency, community health workers, technology and data can be important approaches as organizations build equity. Papers & resources include:
- Responding to Culture: Beyond Cultural Competence Training
- Integrating Community Health Workers into Health Care to Improve Equity and Quality of Care
- Using Data to Reduce Disparities and Improve Quality: A Guide for Health Care Organizations
- Using Communication Technology to Enhance Patient Engagement
- Planning for Sustainability
- Supporting Equity in the Medical Home (Webinars)
Tools
The Finding Answers team developed several interactive tools to help organizations plan to implement equity activities.
- Intervention Builder to categorize and plan equity-focused quality improvement programs,
- Real World Examples from across the country (pdf here), and
- Brainstorming exercises to help the planning process
Understanding and Addressing Health Disparities (CME), 1.0 credit
This CME course presents evidence-based practices and practical strategies to reduce disparities in health care quality. Important note: This course is available for credit only to physicians; however, the information is useful for non-physician health professionals interested in equity and quality improvement work.
*It may also be helpful to review resources on the “Promote Equity” and “Teach Others” pages. While these resources talk less about specific implementation details, their high-level summaries and teaching tips can be very helpful for persuading others about the importance of equity and getting buy-in as you implement your ideas.