Disparities and quality improvement: federal policy levers

Using a quality improvement framework to address racial and ethnic disparities in health care highlights multiple opportunities for federal and state governments to exert policy leverage, particularly through their roles as purchasers and regulators. Under such a framework, federal and state governments can expand their roles in collecting race/ethnicity data; define universal and meaningful race/ethnicity categories; more broadly disseminate standards for cultural competence; and demand the reduction of disparities through leveraging their status as collectively the largest U.S. health care payer.