Dr. Maureen Smith
was recently awarded a 4-year grant from the Wisconsin Partnership Program to support a Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality (WCHQ)-sponsored effort in collaboration with the Collaborative Center for Health Equity (CCHE) to measure and publicly report disparities in the quality of care for health systems across the state of Wisconsin. While Wisconsin ranks high in overall quality of care nationally, the state performs poorly with respect to disparities in quality of care. These disparities in health care quality contribute to the poor health outcomes noted for diverse populations such as people with lower income, less education, racial and ethnic minority populations, people with disabilities, and others. This project has the potential to benefit the most disadvantaged citizens by raising the visibility of disparities and motivating health systems to undertake targeted improvements to directly address these disparities.