Hennepin Healthcare receives NCQA Health Equity Accreditation Plus

Hennepin Healthcare is honored to receive the Health Equity Accreditation and Health Equity Accreditation Plus from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). Last year, we received provisional accreditation and took the opportunity to do a re-survey to obtain full accreditation.

The NCQA Health Equity Accreditation is for organizations that focus on building an internal culture that supports external health equity work and identifying opportunities to reduce inequities in care. The NCQA Health Equity Accreditation Plus is for organizations that have established community partnerships and focus on collecting data on community social risk factors and patients’ social needs.

Here are a few examples of our recent work that we shared with NCQA as we were applying for this year’s accreditation:

• We provide diversity, equity, and inclusion training and resources for all team members.
• The newly created Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Care and Services Program and Committee focuses on how we meet our patients’ language and cultural needs.
• We are using clinical quality data by race, ethnicity, and language to identify opportunities.
• We are partnering with other organizations to meet patient needs, such as our partnership with Second Harvest to provide food bags. Read about it: “One step closer to wellness!”: How our food bags help address food insecurity.
• We are collaborating with language vendor partners to support and improve Interpreter Services

This achievement shows our commitment to reducing health disparities and partnering with our community to address patients’ social needs. We are proud to continue working towards making healthcare more equitable and inclusive for everyone.