Gretchen Borchelt, JD, Physicians for Human Rights, 1156 15th Street NW, Suite 1001, Washington, DC 20005, 202 728 5335, gborchelt@phrusa.org

The federal government has an enormously important role to play in ending racial and ethnic disparities in the quality of health care. It must fashion uniform rules for reporting racial, ethnic identifiers in clinical records, provide a quality assurance analysis in Medicare records to identify racial and ethnic disparities in quality, develop appropriate plans for spending research dollars, enforce federal civil rights laws, and incorporate efforts to end disparities in the quality of treatment in programs operated with federal funds. An array of federal agencies have one or more of these responsibilities. They include the Office of Minority Health, the Office of Civil Rights, AHRQ, the HHS Data Council, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and many others. Holding these agencies accountable for their responsibilities is essential. To do that requires monitoring the activities of these agencies, providing analysis of their performance, communicating with stakeholder groups about the findings, and advocating - along with these stakeholder groups - for the agencies to live up to their responsibilities. This monitoring is critically important because it enables all stakeholders such as professional organizations, constituency and community groups, civil rights groups, health plans and providers, congressional staff and others to be kept up to date and, as important, to assure opportunities to take advantage of advocacy opportunities when they arise. Finally, legislation is pending that can enhance federal compliance and will be addressed.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• Identify the role of monitoring the performance of federal agencies as part of an advocacy strategy to end racial and ethnic disparities.
• Identify particular responsibilities of government that require monitoring and advocacy
• Identify ways in which to become involved as a stakeholder in the monitoring and advocacy activities regarding responsibility of the federal government.

Keywords: Advocacy, Health Disparities

Related Web page: www.phrusa.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.