Health Disparities Collaborative (HDC)

The national Health Disparities Collaborative (HDC) was initiated in 1998 through a partnership of the Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC), the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), five clinical networks, and five Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) from across the country.  The focus of this partnership was to address the crucial issues brought to the forefront by the Institute of Medicine's report entitled "The Quality Chasm".

The HDC program is a "systems change" approach that uses two specific models – the Care Model and the Improvement Model – to assist Health Centers in changing their processes in order to improve functional and clinical outcomes.  For more information on the national HDC, please visit www.healthdisparities.net.

To date, more than 700 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) nationwide have participated in a Collaborative, including all of Indiana's FQHCs.  Indiana participants have continued to increase the number of patients in their registries and have continually improved patient outcomes.  For example, participating Centers have decreased the average HgbA1c of their patients (6,486 in the registries) from as high as 9.4 to 7.7.  

Each of the Midwest's Primary Care Associations has staff assigned to assist Centers that are participating in the HDC.  These staff members collaborate by phone bi-weekly on various topics such as planning of conference calls, learning sessions, the Quality Inventory Survey, and the Greater Midwest PCA's Quality and Technology Super Summit.

The Midwest Clinicians' Network (MWCN) was one of the original clinical networks chosen to partner with the BPHC and IHI in development of the Health Disparities Collaborative; the HDC Steering Committee is a subcommittee of the MWCN.  The MWCN's listserv is one of the best information sharing tools available, and there is also a very active Research Committee that offers research opportunities for MWCN members.  Health Centers do not have to be FQHCs to be members of the MWCN. 

For more information on the MWCN, please visit: www.midwestclinicians.org.