Building an Equitable Health Care System: CQC's Health Equity Roadmap 

Advancing health equity is fundamental to achieving high-quality, patient-centered care for all. The California Quality Collaborative's (CQC) latest issue brief, Building an Equitable Health Care System: A Health Equity Roadmap and Recommendations for Collective Impact in California, provides a strategic framework to address disparities and ensure equity is at the forefront of care delivery.

This roadmap builds on CQC’s longstanding efforts, aligning with state and federal initiatives to drive sustainable, equity-focused reforms. It emphasizes key strategies such as integrating equity metrics into payment models, standardizing demographic data collection and fostering partnerships with community-based organizations to address social determinants of health.

Key Takeaways

• Integrate Equity into Payment Models: Drive measurable reductions in disparities by embedding equity metrics into value-based payment systems and incentivizing solutions for social determinants of health.
• Implement Standardized Data Practices: Collect, analyze and leverage demographic data (e.g., race, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation) to expose care gaps, stratify metrics and guide targeted improvements.
• Forge Community Partnerships: Collaborate with community-based organizations to deliver integrated care that addresses critical needs like housing, food security and transportation.
• Empower Providers with Equity Strategies: Deliver comprehensive training, tools and support to enable providers to adopt equity-focused care models and scale best practices through learning collaboratives.

This issue brief offers actionable recommendations to achieve these takeaways for payers, providers and regulators to implement sustainable strategies that ensure equitable, high-quality care for all Californians.

Jan. 8 | CQC Behavioral Health Integration Implementation Webinar: Spread and Sustain

Join CQC for the final webinar in our three-part series designed to help health care organizations — both providers and health plans — enhance behavioral health integration (BHI) and improve patient outcomes, while meeting key accountability requirements.

BHI Spread and Sustain will highlight approaches to successfully spread behavioral health integration across practice sites and sustain quality, access and financial goals.

Date: Wednesday, January 8
Time: 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. PT
Location: Virtual via Zoom

Missed or want to revisit our first two sessions? Access the recordings below.

Community Corner

Strengthening Independent Primary Care in California
A recent report from the California Health Care Foundation  explores the importance of supporting small independent primary care practices in California. Read the report to learn about the challenges and motivators for these practices. 

California Improvement Network (CIN) Partner Recruitment 
CIN is now recruiting HCOs and CBOs for the upcoming two-year cycle (Mar. 2025 – Mar. 2027). Visit CIN's website to review eligibility requirements, commitment expectations, financial support and apply by Jan. 13.

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The California Quality Collaborative (CQC) is a quality improvement program of the Purchaser Business Group on Health (PBGH).