Advancing an Equity-Imbued Policy Infrastructure

The Institute for Equity in Health Policy and Practice was established in response to the forward-looking consensus that equity must become integral to the American health services research, delivery and financing construct. The Institute is a sponsored partnership that enables key stakeholders in the public and private sectors to collaborate on initiatives that will advance the creation of a policy and regulatory infrastructure that is imbued with the principles of equity and reduction of patient risk.

The Institute’s members, through collaborative efforts, have enhanced potential to counter the structural and systemic policies that are the proximate cause of inequities in amenable and preventable morbidity and premature mortality. The legacy of this structural inequity is a health system that increases patient risk in service to business models and values that are designed to mitigate financial risk. The evidence of this inability is found in scientific research and quality metrics that ignore patient variability, in health care policies that create inequalities and promote disparities, and in poor health outcomes and medical errors for an increasing number of Americans.

The National Minority Quality Forum (NMQF) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit research and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. The mission of NMQF is to reduce patient risk by assuring optimal care for all. NMQF’s vision is an American health services research, delivery and financing system whose operating principle is to reduce patient risk for amenable morbidity and mortality while improving quality of life. NMQF’s capabilities include federal and state policy analysis and advocacy; issue-specific alliance development; community-based provider quality improvement initiatives, and data analytics.

Institute for Equity in Health Policy and Practice Membership Brief