CMS awarded Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Novant Health and Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente the first Health Equity Award at the CMS Quality Conference.
"Both organizations take a system approach to embed equity and use quality improvement to identify, target, reduce disparities," CMS said in a tweet.
The CMS Health Equity Award recognizes organizations with a commitment to reducing care disparities among racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, sexual and gender minorities, and residents in rural areas. Hospitals, health plans, Medicaid agencies, provider groups and all CMS partner organizations were eligible to enter.
Winners had to be able to demonstrate results in improving health equity over the past calendar year, according to a call for entries from the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health.
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