Turning Data Into Action: A Playbook for Advancing Health Equity

Healthcare organizations across the country are committed to improving health equity—but many struggle with a fundamental question: how do you measure progress in a meaningful, actionable way?

A new resource, Cracking the Code: A Health Equity Analytics Implementation Playbook for Healthcare Organizations, helps answer that question. The playbook offers a structured, practical approach for using advanced analytics to identify disparities, measure improvement and guide action.

The playbook is designed primarily for quality improvement leaders in health plans and health systems who are working to advance health equity. More specifically, it is intended for professionals responsible for:

• Population health strategy.
• Quality improvement initiatives.
• Data analytics and reporting.
• Health equity program design.

Policymakers and regional collaboratives aiming to establish shared benchmarks and promote collective accountability among organizations serving the same populations will also find this playbook valuable.

What Are Advanced Health Equity Analytics Methods?

Advanced health equity analytics methods are a tool to evaluate performance across multiple quality measures and multiple stratified subgroups simultaneously, revealing patterns that are otherwise difficult to detect. These methods produce health equity scores that healthcare organizations can use to monitor reductions in disparities, quantify the impact of interventions and benchmark performance for system-wide accountability.

NCQA assessed the validity, utility and feasibility of four advanced health equity analytic methods using real-world data from two health plans and one health system. We combined this data evaluation with detailed interviews and group discussions to understand how these scores could be implemented in practice to support quality improvement and population health strategies.

The resulting Implementation Playbook presents a detailed approach for:

• Selecting and building a health equity scoring method that works for your organization.
• Mobilizing internal support and resources.
• Gathering external buy-in across organizations to collectively address health gaps across overlapping populations.

Many organizations already track quality performance—but often in ways that miss the full picture. Evaluating measures in isolation, or stratifying by a single factor at a time, can overlook how disparities intersect and compound across populations. The playbook addresses this challenge by promoting a more holistic approach and providing a pathway to get there.

How Can Organizations Use the Implementation Playbook?

Organizations can use the playbook at different stages of their health equity journey. For those just getting started, it provides a phased approach that begins with simple measure stratification and builds toward more advanced composite scoring. For organizations with more mature analytics capabilities, the playbook offers guidance on refining methods, scaling efforts and aligning with external partners.

To build a health equity scoring approach, an organization must consider the following steps:

1. Select a quality measurement focus area.
2. Choose which demographic factors to analyze.
3. Identify reference groups and comparison points.
4. Interpret the results.

Compiling and analyzing the data requires organizations to have adequate internal staff capacity, typically comprised of specialized staff who are well-versed in robust analyses and data systems. Once the data for health equity scores are retrieved, they can be integrated into existing internal reporting methods or dashboards.

These scores can enable comparisons within and among healthcare organizations, helping them gain a better understanding of their impact across populations. The scores can also guide program implementation efforts to improve health equity across different populations.

Learn More

Visit our website to download a copy of Cracking the Code: A Health Equity Analytics Implementation Playbook for Healthcare Organizations.

This playbook is part of a broader effort to close gaps in care through measurement and incentives. Join us for a webinar, Beyond Measurement: Turning Health Equity Insights Into Action, hosted by the Commonwealth Fund and the California Health Care Foundation on June 30 at 3:30 pm (ET), to learn more about this work and other health equity accountability initiatives.

Feedback from Participating Organizations

Here’s what we heard from organizations that participated in the testing:

“Part of my work here is to help educate top down around equity . . . with our members and the different disparities that we observe. I can’t do that without solid data . . . and predictive analytics and identification of trends. Where are those hotspots? Where should we deploy resources or limit resources?” ~ Vice President of Health Equity

“Oftentimes we collect a great amount of information and data from multiple sources. [Making] sense of multiple data sources and multiple data outputs, such as four distinct numeric outputs of equity . . . allow organizations to have conversations around this.” ~ Community Health Impact Manager

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the California Health Care Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund.