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One of the primary goals of the Disparities Solutions Center is to provide education and leadership training to develop a national network of skilled individuals dedicated to eliminating racial/ethnic disparities in health care. Through the Disparities Leadership Program we hope to move this from a goal to a reality.
----Joseph R. Betancourt, MD, MPH
Director, The Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital |
Please visit our DLP alumni page, for more information on past participants, including a list of our current class.
Download Forms: See below for more information and timelines.
The Institute of Medicine Reports Crossing the Quality Chasm and Unequal Treatment highlight the critical nexus between improving quality and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Combined, they provide a blueprint for addressing disparities that can only be achieved if a concerted, coordinated effort towards health systems change can be achieved. This will require leaders in quality improvement who have the tools and skills to move their organizations forward toward the elimination of racial and ethnic disparities in care.
The Disparities Leadership Program (DLP) is a year-long executive education program designed for leaders from hospitals, health plans and other health care organizations who want a) develop a strategic plan or b) advance a project to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care, particularly through quality improvement. The DLP has two overarching goals:
- To create a cadre of leaders in health care equipped with a) in-depth knowledge of the field of disparities, including root causes and research to date; b) cutting-edge quality improvement strategies for identifying and addressing disparities; and c) the leadership skills to implement these strategies and help transform their organizations.
- To help individuals from organizations—who may be at the beginning stages or in the middle of developing or implementing a strategic plan or project to address disparities—further advance or improve their work in a customized, tailored fashion.
 The DLP faculty will consist of a team of leaders who are action-oriented and have practical experience implementing organizational and quality improvement strategies aimed at eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care. It focuses on the lessons learned and expertise gained from the development and evolution of programs currently in place at the Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as at several leading health plans across the country. The DLP will be led by national experts from The Disparities Solutions Center (DSC) at Massachusetts General Hospital.
To view a list of previous DLP participants, please visit our alumni page.
This program is jointly sponsored by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). It is supported by Joint Commission Resources (JCR), an affiliate of The Joint Commission.
The Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital is dedicated to developing and implementing strategies to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care through innovative policy and practice. Created and led by Dr. Joseph Betancourt, the DSC is made up of a multidisciplinary team of health care professionals with expertise in the area of racial/ethnic data collection, performance measurement and reporting, disparities interventions, and evaluation. The DSC strives to:
- Serve as a change agent by developing new research and translating innovative research findings into policy and practice
- Develop and evaluate customized policy and practice solutions for health care providers, insurers, educators, community organizations and other stakeholders
- Provide education and leadership training to expand the community of skilled individuals dedicated to eliminating health care disparities
 The DSC has significant, practical, real-world experience in the area of addressing racial/ethnic disparities in health care. For example, the leadership of the DSC has worked with several leading health plans across the country to develop strategies to identify and eliminate disparities. In addition, DSC faculty have staffed the Massachusetts General Hospital Committee on Racial and Ethnic Disparities, pioneering activities such as the Disparities Dashboard, an innovative way to identify and monitor disparities, as well as the development of a culturally competent diabetes disease management program. This experience, along with the active role the DSC faculty have played in the now well-recognized effort among Boston hospitals to eliminate disparities under the leadership of Mayor Menino, uniquely positions them to provide training to those interested in addressing disparities through quality improvement.
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The DLP is designed for leaders from hospitals, health plans, physician organizations, community health centers, and other health care organizations who want to implement strategies to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Participants may include, but are not limited to: executive leadership, medical directors, directors of quality, and directors of multicultural affairs or community benefits. To maximize the benefits of the year-long DLP, participants should have strong commitment from their organization, as well as resources available, to advance an action plan to address disparities. Teams of two participants per organization are encouraged, though not required.
- The Institute of Medicine's landmark report Crossing the Quality Chasm highlighted equity as one of the essential pillars of health care quality. For an organization to improve quality for all patients it must be able to measure disparities by race/ethnicity and develop interventions to address them.
- The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the Joint Commission made bold moves to incorporate issues of disparities and cultural and linguistic competency into their standards for hospitals and health plans. The DLP will help health care leaders put their organizations ahead of the curve on this important emerging issue.
- Eliminating disparities in health care requires leadership, vision, teamwork, and an understanding of the issues and potential intervention strategies. The DLP is designed to build participants' knowledge and skills in these essential areas while developing a network of leaders focused on the same goals.
- Between now and the year 2050, racial/ethnic minorities will account for 90% of the projected increase in the U.S. population. Thus, most new growth in the health care market will come from minorities. Addressing racial/ethnic disparities in care will help health care organizations gain a competitive edge in a changing market.
The DLP has four major activities:
- Formal Skills Curriculum
 The DLP will begin with a two-day intensive training session focused on defining disparities and root causes; developing cutting-edge quality improvement strategies to identify and address disparities; and fostering leadership skills to implement these strategies and help transform their organizations. Faculty will include national experts at the DSC, leadership from the MGH, and leadership from several health plans across the country who are at the cutting-edge of the disparities field. Some of the topics covered during the training include:
- Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care: Background on the issue of racial and ethnic disparities in health care including a review of root causes and strategies to address them
- Leading Change: Organizational Planning Tools for Disparity Solutions
- Getting Disparities on the Leadership Agenda: Building the will among leaders in the organization to become invested in identifying and addressing racial/ethnic disparities in health care, including the presentation of the business and quality case for addressing this issue
- Where to Begin: Tools and activities to help organizations get started with efforts to identify and address disparities, including the strategies, techniques and technology for collecting race and ethnicity data
- Creating Disparities Measures and Reporting Mechanisms: Guidance on how to stratify quality measures by race and ethnicity, and report them appropriately via dashboards, scorecards, or other standard or innovative mechanisms
- Adding the Community, Patient, and Staff Voice to the Disparities Agenda: Strategies for bringing in key perspectives to disparities and patient safety work, including those of the community, the patient, and the health care staff
- Developing Disparities Interventions: Developing and implementing innovative approaches to address disparities organizationally and through quality improvement
- Making Systems Responsive to the Needs of Diverse Populations: Review of tools to improve the cultural competency of the health care delivery system and capacity to address the needs of patients with limited English proficiency
- Communicating Broadly and Clearly: Developing an approach to communicating the issue of disparities both internally and externally
- Assuring Sustainability: How to assure pilot programs become standard practice within the organization and how to disseminate successes broadly
- Analyzing and Comparing Your Race and Ethnicity Data: How to compile your data in a meaningful and effective way.
- Disparities Leadership Program Alumni: The Road Ahead
2. Disparities Strategic Plan/Project
The development of strategic plans or the advancement of a component of a project designed specifically to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care within health care organizations. As a condition of entry, participants in the DLP must either:
A. Develop a strategic plan to address disparities over the course of a year. They should use learnings from the DLP to develop a blue print to address disparities in the near future. This can be a more simple, basic, conceptual strategic plan (approximately 10 pages), or a more detailed, traditional strategic plan.
B. Or advance a component of a project that addresses disparities. By advance a component of a project, we mean moving one step forward on a project that is already underway, or taking the first step on a new project. We understand it is difficult to complete an entire project over the course of one year. Examples of the types of projects considered include:
- Implementing a system to collect patient's race/ethnicity and language data
- Stratifying and reporting quality data by race/ethnicity
- Developing a culturally competent disease management program
- Evaluating a disparities intervention
- Expanding disparities interventions across conditions and populations
In either case, applicants must propose the ways in which they would like to advance this work over the course of the year through participation in the DLP. Again, participants can be in various stages of development in their program, ranging from developing a strategic plan to evaluating disparities interventions.
3. Technical Assistance
The DSC will work with DLP participants to achieve their disparities project goals through various modalities of technical assistance, including three interactive conference calls for the entire group, and two interactive web seminars on additional learning topics tailored to the most pressing needs of participants. Participants will also be invited to participate in other DSC activities on an on-going basis (such as teleconferences on current disparities issues, additional web seminars, etc.) as part of the DLP network.
4. Closing Session, Group Learning and Dissemination
The DLP will continue with a two-day closing meeting where participants will present their work and lessons learned and individual strategic plans or projects. They will also have the opportunity to network with and learn from like-minded peers at this time and over the course of the year. DLP participants will receive continuing education credits, as well as a certificate for completing the program. All DLP projects will be highlighted on the DSC website. Some may be featured in web seminars and case studies published and distributed by the DSC. Three projects will be chosen to receive an award for innovation and success and will be featured in press releases about the DLP. A selection of projects may have the opportunity to present their work at national meetings on quality including Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care.
At the conclusion of this program, the learner will be able to:
1. Identify ways to secure buy in by having health care leaders better understand the issues of disparities and become invested in doing something to address them.
2. List techniques and technology for race and ethnicity data collection and disparities performance measurement.
3. Identify interventions to reduce disparities in health care.
4. Identify ways to message the issue of disparities both internally and externally.
5. Describe a concrete step that their organization will take toward the elimination of racial/ethnic disparities in care.
While we anticipate being able to accommodate most applicants to the DLP, we are limiting the program in order to maintain an effective learner to faculty ratio. In order to ensure the success of the program we will review applications based on the following criteria:
- Level of organizational commitment to the applicants' efforts as measured by
- Letter of support signed by a member of senior leadership or board of the applicant’s organization authorizing release time to commit to the DLP and support for tuition and travel expenses (templates will be provided)
- Resources available (time and financial) to start or advance the applicants' efforts
- Commitment and ability of applicant/team to address racial and ethnic disparities at their organizations as described in the short essay responses
- Professional position and capacity of the applicant/team to move their organizations forward towards identifying and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities
Note: Preference will be given to organizations that can send at least a two-person team (individuals are still encouraged to apply).
We encourage interested parties to submit an Intent to Apply Form due on December 11th prior to submitting a complete application.
View sample responses for application questions
| February 8, 2010 |
DLP Application due (word) (pdf) |
| March 26 , 2010 |
DLP Applicants are notified |
| May 8, 2010 |
Tuition is due |
| May 19-20, 2010 |
Two day opening meeting in Boston, MA, at Le Meridien Cambridge (www.hotelatmit.com) |
| February 2011 |
Two day meeting - date and West coast location to be determined |
Tuition is due upon acceptance into the Disparities Leadership Program, and is $9,500 per person. After organizations are notified of their acceptance into the program, the tuition is due on April 30, 2010. This covers all program activities (two two-day training sessions—one in Boston, MA, the other location on the West Coast; conference calls, web seminars, and program materials) as well 2 night hotel stays and meals at the opening and closing session. Participants are responsible for all travel costs to and from the sessions.
Partial scholarships may be available for individuals and teams. If you are interested in receiving a scholarship, please attach a brief letter to your completed application, explaining your need for financial assistance and the amount requested.
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Physicians:
NCQA is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
NCQA designates this educational activity for a maximum of 12.25 AMA PRA Category1 CreditsTM. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity
Nurses:
This program for 12.25 contact hours is provided by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, which is accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
To successfully complete this activity and receive CME or CNE credit, you must:
- sign the participant roster,
- remain for the entire program, and
- complete and submit a program evaluation.
A certificate of completion specifying applicable credits will be available for each participant after the program.
The Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) considers all applicants and program participants without regard to race, color, national origin, age, religious creed, sex or sexual orientation. MGH is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We encourage participation by all individuals. If you need any of the auxiliary aids or services identified in the Americans with Disabilities Act, please describe your particular needs in writing and include it with this application.
Please submit any cancellation or withdrawal in writing. Cancellation notices received after April 2, 2010 but before April 30, 2010, will be charged a 25% processing fee. Cancellations made after April 30, 2010, will not be refunded their tuition.
Please browse our website for information on other Disparities Solutions Center activities.
Or contact
Aswita Tan-McGrory, MSPH
Operations Manager of The Disparities Solutions Center
Massachusetts General Hospital
50 Staniford Street, 9th Floor, Suite 901
Boston, MA 02114
Email: atanmcgrory@partners.org
Phone: (617) 643-2916
Fax: (617) 726-4120
Disparities Solutions Center Faculty:
Joseph R. Betancourt, MD, MPH, is the Director of the Disparities Solutions Center, Senior Scientist at the Institute for Health Policy, and Director of Multicultural Education at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He is also an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a practicing internist at MGH. He has served on several Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committees, including those that produced “Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Health Care”, “Guidance for a National Health Care Disparities Report”, and “In the Nation’s Compelling Interest: Ensuring Diversity in the Health Care Workforce.” He served on the Boston Public Health Commission's Disparities Committee, the Massachusetts State Disparities Committee, and now co-chair’s MGH’s Disparities Committee and is on the Massachusetts State Disparities Council.
Alexander R. Green, MD, MPH, is the Associate Director of the Disparities Solutions Center and Senior Scientist at the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also Chair of the Cross-Cultural Care Committee at Harvard Medical School. His work focuses on programs designed to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in care, including the use of culturally competent quality improvement interventions, leadership development, and dissemination strategies. He has studied the role of unconscious biases and their impact on clinical decision-making, language barriers and patient satisfaction, and innovative approaches to cross-cultural medical education. He has also served on several national panels on disparities and cultural competency including the Joint Commission's "Hospitals, Language, and Culture" project.
Roderick R. King, MD, MPH, is currently Senior Faculty at the Disparities Solutions Center and an Instructor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. King’s work focuses on leadership & workforce development, and improving health systems performance as they relate to addressing health disparities and improving the health of underserved populations. In addition, Dr. King was recently selected as one of two Inaugural Institute of Medicine Anniversary Fellows, where he serves on the Board on Global Health, which oversees the study, “The US Commitment to Global Health”. In addition, he also serves on the Board on Population Health and Public Practices which oversees the IOM “Roundtable for Racial and Ethnic Disparities.” He most recently served as the Director for the Health Resources and Services Administration, Boston Regional Division and as a Commander in the US Public Health Service, U.S. Department of HHS.
Lenny Lopez, MD, MDiv, MPH, is currently Senior Faculty at the Disparities Solutions Center. Dr. Lopez received his BA in Religion and an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He also received a Master of Divinity and a Master of Public Health from Harvard University. He completed his Internal Medicine residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. After residency, he completed a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in minority health policy and is focusing his research on cardiovascular health in Latinos and hospital patient safety. He was a General Medicine research fellow at Harvard, a Aetna/DSC Healthcare Disparities Fellow at the DSC, and is an Associate Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Additional Faculty:
Below is the list of additional faculty for the 2009-2010 class. A final faculty list for the 2010-2011 class has yet to be finalized.
Peter Slavin, MD, President of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)
Rhonda Moore Johnson, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Integrated Clinical Services, Highmark, Inc.
Daniel Driscoll, MRP, CEO/President, Harbor Health Services
Nancy Connery, MS, Director of Admitting and Registration Services at MGH
Claire Spettell, PhD, Informatics Head, Aetna, Inc.
Hugo Alvarez, MD, Deputy Medical Officer, UM/QI Associate Medical Director, ACCESS Community Health Network
Katherine Flaherty, ScD, Consultant, MGH
Gregg Meyer, MD, Senior Vice President for Quality and Patient Safety, MGH
Elizabeth Mort, MD, MPH, Associate Chief Medical Officer, Vice President of Quality and Safety, MGH
Robert Hoch, MD, MPH, CMO, Harbor Health Services, Inc.
Terri Amano, Senior Product Manager, WellPoint Inc./HMC
Jim Walton, DO, VP and Chief Health Equity Officer, Baylor Health Care System
Vanessa McClinchy, M.Ed., Consultant, MGH
Lourdes Sanchez, MS, Consultant, MGH
Lee Chelminiak, Communications Manager at Partners Community Benefits Program at Partners HealthCare
Suzanne Kim, Senior Public Affairs Officer at MGH
Disparities Solutions Center staff:
Aswita Tan-McGrory, MSPH– Operations Manager – Ms. Tan-McGrory is the Operations Manager at the Disparities Solutions Center. Her interests are in providing equitable care to underserved populations and she has over 15 years of professional experience in the areas of maternal/child health, elder homelessness, and HIV testing and counseling. She received her Master of Science in Public Health from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine with a concentration in tropical medicine and parasitology. Prior to receiving her Masters, she spent 2 years in rural Nigeria, West Africa, on water sanitation and Guinea Worm Eradication projects with the Peace Corps. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology and art history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and is currently working on her MBA at Babson College.
Megan Renfrew, MA –Project Coordinator - Megan oversees the implementation and evaluation of the community-based health intervention programs. Ms. Renfrew has over eight years of professional experience in public health research, project management, and program evaluation, with a specialization in qualitative methods. She received a Masters Degree in Gender and Cultural Studies from Simmons College and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at Brandeis University with a focus in medical sociology, qualitative research methods, and the sociology of families.
Marina Cervantes- Research Assistant - Marina graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a certificate in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures from Princeton University. While at Princeton she was president of Chicano Caucus and was involved in research on environmental health policy, immigration, and diabetes.
Wanda Vega - Program Assistant - Wanda is presently working on her Bachelor of Science in Human Services/Management from the University of Phoenix Online. During Ms. Vega’s career at the Massachusetts General Hospital, she worked with the Clinical Care Management Unit, providing the infrastructure necessary for MGH to analyze and improve the quality and efficiency of its clinical services. She also worked with the Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology (CIMIT), where she coordinated their Weekly Forum, a vital tool used to create collaborations for patient benefit. Prior to working at MGH, Ms. Vega completed ten years of government service with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Click here to view testimonials about The Disparities Leadership Program from panelists and participants.
All interested applicants are encouraged to browse our website to learn more about The Disparities Solutions Center.
Complete applications must be submitted by email. Signature pages can be faxed to us, or scanned in and sent to us by email. Applications are due by February 8, 2010. Please send your applications to:
Aswita Tan-McGrory – Operations Manager
The Disparities Solutions Center – MGH Institute for Health Policy
50 Staniford Street, 9th Floor, Suite 901
Boston, MA 02114
Email: atanmcgrory@partners.org
Phone: (617) 643-2916
Fax: (617) 726-4120
Download intent to apply form and an application (word) or (pdf). Also, see our program brochure.
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