The National Committee for Quality Assurance has launched a new Web site designed to provide online resources to reduce disparities in healthcare.

"Despite substantial improvement in quality in some areas of healthcare, many people in linguistic, racial and ethnic minority groups continue to have poorer health and lower quality healthcare than white Americans," said NCQA Executive Vice President L. Gregory Pawlson. "NCQA has worked for two decades to improve the quality of care for all people, and this resource can encourage and support health care organizations in improving their multicultural capabilities."

Previously only available in print form, the new Web site (www.CLAShealth.org,) "Multicultural Health Care: A Quality Improvement Guide," provides information for healthcare organizations that include managed care plans, large group practices, hospitals, public health agencies, disease management organizations, community health centers and other care institutions.

NCQA officials said the number of Americans who experience some degree of health disparity will rise over the next 50 years, as racial and ethnic populations increase.

"The guide will be a starting point for understanding and addressing the differences in prevalence and adverse health conditions that exist among various populations," said Alex M. Azar II, vice president of Lilly USA, which helped develop the new Web site. "Reducing disparities in healthcare is important, and this online tool will offer guidance in developing competent programs to help alleviate these differences."

The site is organized into four chapters that are designed to follow the steps of a basic quality improvement process: assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation.The chapters explain each process and provide information on how to follow the process and resources and examples from a variety of settings.

"The guide on www.CLAShealth.org is an extremely valuable contribution to the quality improvement field," said Robert C. Like, professor and director of the Center for Healthy Families and Cultural Diversity. "Healthcare organizations now have access to an online toolkit that can help them improve the quality of services provided to increasingly diverse populations. The tools will be useful to administrators, clinicians, educators and advocates, and can also be used to meet legislative, regulatory and accreditation requirements for cultural and linguistic competency."