Maryland Physicians Care Earns NCQA Health Equity Accreditation, Reinforcing Commitment to Inclusive, High-Quality Care
MPC community engagement representative speaks with a prospective member at a health event to help them understand how to get the most out of their coverage.
Maryland Physicians Care (MPC) received Health Equity Accreditation from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). This recognition underscores MPC’s ongoing commitment to improving member outcomes by identifying and developing comprehensive strategies and interventions that aim to reduce health disparities. MPC strives to provide quality healthcare services that are equitable, understandable, and respectful of members’ individual culture, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and language.
NCQA’s Health Equity Accreditation focuses on the foundation of health equity work: building an internal culture that supports the organization’s external health equity work; collecting data that helps the organization create and offer language services and provider networks mindful of individuals’ cultural and linguistic needs; and identifying opportunities to reduce health inequities and improve care.
MPC is driving health equity by:
- Adopting protocols and practices designed to enhance the internal culture that supports our external health equity work.
- Collecting and utilizing data to assess members’ cultural and linguistic needs; identifying disparities that may lead to healthcare inequities; developing programs to reduce those disparities.
- Working with provider and member stakeholders to identify and address member linguistic needs.
Within the first year of the accreditation process, MPC was successful with:
- Engaging providers and internal staff in cultural competency training.
- Establishing a certification process for our Spanish-speaking staff, whereby 100% of the Spanish-speaking staff are certified as interpreters.
- Implementing Perinatal Performance Improvement Projects with a health equity focus aimed at improving prenatal and postnatal care rates, well-child care rates, and immunization rates.
- Initiating a minority advocacy group to discuss disparities in healthcare.
“Maryland Physicians Care is proud to have earned our NCQA Health Equity Plan accreditation,” said Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Glenn Bruce Vanderver. “This reflects our commitment to ensuring all our members have access to the highest quality medical care. MPC strives to ensure every member we serve gets the medical care they deserve.”
