Burton View

McLaren Health Plan earns national award for multicultural health care efforts


FLINT — McLaren Health Plan has earned recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for its multicultural outreach and efforts to reduce health care access and delivery disparities within diverse communities.

The NCQA awards its Multicultural Health Care (MHC) Distinction designation to organizations that meet or exceed its rigorous requirements for multicultural health care. It recognizes organizations that lead the market in providing culturally and linguistically sensitive services and work to reduce health care disparities.

“We are honored to have earned this distinction” said Nancy Jenkins, president and CEO of McLaren Health Plan. “Our mission is to enhance our members’ health status in the communities we serve, and we are committed to ensuring we maintain the highest standards of quality, service and care to all people.”

The MHC is a nationally recognized evaluation that purchasers, regulators, and consumers can use to assess which organizations have earned distinction by meeting rigorous standards in serving a diverse population.

The MHC program evaluates how well an organization complies with the standards for the following areas: Collection of race/ethnicity and language data; provision of language assistance; cultural responsiveness; and quality improvement of culturally and linguistically appropriate services, and reduction of health care disparities.

“Earning Multicultural Health Care Distinction shows that an organization is making a breakthrough in providing excellent health care to diverse populations. I congratulate any organization that achieves this level of distinction,” said NCQA President Margaret E. O’Kane. “Eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care is essential to improving the quality of care overall.”

NCQA is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations. It also recognizes clinicians and practices in key areas of performance. NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. NCQA’s website (ncqa.org) contains information to help consumers, employers and others make more-informed health care choices. NCQA can be found online at ncqa.org, on Twitter @ncqa, on Facebook at facebook.com/NCQA.org/ and on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/ncqa.