Racial, ethnic disparities in health care: Knowing how to fight them

Published: 2007-07-06

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Dr. Anna Maria Izquierdo-Porrera knows firsthand that medical offices must be places on which patients can rely to receive quality health care when they need it and places to which they will want to return. As medical director of the Spanish Catholic Center of Catholic Community Services in Washington, she tries to cultivate personal relationships with those in her care, such as the fiftysomething Cuban-born homeless man who became "part of the family" at the center until his recent death in hospice care after fighting both heart disease and lung cancer. That man might have been homeless but he did have a "medical home," according to the definition offered by the Commonwealth Fund in its new study on how racial and ethnic disparities in health care could be reduced or eliminated if more minority patients had a medical home. "This survey shows that if you can provide both insurance and access to a true medical home, racial and ethnic differences in getting needed medical care are often eliminated," said Dr. Anne Beal, senior program officer at the Commonwealth Fund and lead co-author of the study, at a June 27 news conference in Washington.

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