Why Are We Asking Patients to Complete a Patient Demographics Questionnaire?

Why are we asking patients to complete a Patient Demographics Questionnaire?

On December 19, 2008, the Quality Improvement Steering Committee approved collection of Race/Ethnicity/Language information for our patients as part of our Cultural Competency initiative, in order to monitor quality of care, identify and address health disparities, and improve clinical care for our diverse population. Health disparities (also called healthcare inequality in some countries) refer to gaps in the quality of health and health care across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups.

Since May 22, 2008, many PSR teams have been asking patients, as they check in for an appointment, to participate in filling out a short questionnaire regarding race and ethnicity. Patients’ participation is voluntary.

At this time, the only departments in the Palo Alto division collecting this data are Internal Medicine, Dermatology and Family Medicine. Other departments in Palo Alto will begin collection soon. The Camino division has rolled this out to all departments and Santa Cruz has not started yet.

The Patient Demographics Questionnaire has a total of 5 questions. At the beginning of the form the following is stated:

“We are asking for your race and ethnicity because some people have higher risks of developing certain diseases, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. It is also important that we know your preferred spoken language so that you and your health care team can communicate clearly”

The information collected becomes part of the patients’ registration information in IDX. This information will be linked with clinical data from EPIC for analysis of healthcare disparities. As with the rest of the patient’s medical information, race/ethnicity/language data is protected by HIPPA laws and will not be shared outside the organization.

We hope you find the following background information useful

Why are we collecting this information?

 To ensure that PAMF provides superior care that meets the individual needs of every patient.

 To fulfill PAMF’s vision: To exemplify the highest possible standard in medical practice and patient care -- the way health care should be delivered, the way medicine should be practiced.

 To identify and address healthcare disparities. Regarding this subject, the following Healthcare Disparities have been documented through Research (Information is provided by the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research):

 About 30 percent of Hispanic and 20 percent of black Americans lack a usual source of health care compared with less than 16 percent of whites.

 Hispanic children are nearly three times as likely as non-Hispanic white children to have no usual source of health care.

 African Americans and Hispanic Americans are far more likely to rely on hospitals or clinics for their usual source of care than are white Americans (16 and 13 percent, respectively, v. 8 percent).

 Adverse maternal outcomes in women with asthma: differences by race

What have we done to date? We are working on the Cultural Competence Alignment with the Sutter Health Dashboard by doing the following:

 Clinical Quality

– Collection of race and ethnicity data

– Evaluation of metrics to address healthcare disparity

 Service Excellence

– Patient satisfaction based on demographics

– Physician satisfaction with access and quality of interpreter services

– Establish best practice for interpreter certification

 People

– Evaluate EOW responses via racial background

– Celebrate Diversity

Where did these questions come from?

The wording of the questions are directly from the U.S. Census 2000 (http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/pdf/d02p.pdf). While there may be some areas we would like to change, we have kept the form consistent with the Census to aid in comparative analysis of our data.

Is this legal?

The law permitshealth care organizations to collect race, ethnicity, and primary language data from patients for quality improvement purposes.For example, the collection of race, ethnicity, and primary language data is permitted under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In fact, regarding spoken language, we are required by law (CA Health and Safety Code AB800, Section 123147) to request this information.

Further Questions?

Additional questions can be directed to ______.

For more information on Cultural Competency and related topics, please visit the following Share Point site: http://mysutter/C0/CulturalCompetence/default.aspx