In March of 2009, the Oregon Office of Health Policy and Research, the Oregon Safety Net Advisory Council, the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, and the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation convened a meeting to develop a voluntary state standard for collecting race, ethnicity, and primary language data. Participants included consumer groups, health plans, providers, and state agency representatives. The participants agreed on the goal statement that:
Collecting patient information about race, ethnicity and language through self-report from the patient by a well-trained staff in a practical, standardized, valid, reliable and culturally appropriate and sensitive format is critical to eliminate disparities and achieve high quality health care for all.
Participants discussed how to implement this goal. For those who are able, collecting data at the granular level using a detailed list of entries for race and ethnicity specific to Oregon is preferable to using the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) broad race and ethnicity categories. Collecting detailed data increases the opportunity for consistency and accuracy, and fosters dialogue. However, it is also important to aggregate granular data into the OMB race and ethnicity categories to facilitate community-wide data aggregation and national comparison, and complete state and/or federal regulation reporting requirements.
Work is currently underway to finalize a voluntary state standard for data collection.
Disparities
In March of 2009, the Oregon Office of Health Policy and Research, the Oregon Safety Net Advisory Council, the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, and the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation convened a meeting to develop a voluntary state standard for collecting race, ethnicity, and primary language data. Participants included consumer groups, health plans, providers, and state agency representatives. The participants agreed on the goal statement that:
Collecting patient information about race, ethnicity and language through self-report from the patient by a well-trained staff in a practical, standardized, valid, reliable and culturally appropriate and sensitive format is critical to eliminate disparities and achieve high quality health care for all.
Participants discussed how to implement this goal. For those who are able, collecting data at the granular level using a detailed list of entries for race and ethnicity specific to Oregon is preferable to using the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) broad race and ethnicity categories. Collecting detailed data increases the opportunity for consistency and accuracy, and fosters dialogue. However, it is also important to aggregate granular data into the OMB race and ethnicity categories to facilitate community-wide data aggregation and national comparison, and complete state and/or federal regulation reporting requirements.
Work is currently underway to finalize a voluntary state standard for data collection.