Foreword from Director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), National Institutes of Health (NIH)

The mission of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is to improve minority health and to lead scientific research to eliminate health disparities. Achieving this mission is a daunting task requiring collaborations among multiple stakeholders addressing multiple fronts. Thus, it is with great pleasure that the NIH/NIMHD, in collaboration with the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), announce the release of this special issue, Evidence for Informing the Next Generation of Quality Improvement Initiatives: Models, Methods, Measures, and Outcomes.

The delivery of quality health care services is essential to ensure patient safety and satisfaction as well as to reduce inefficiencies in a context of limited resources. The effective and efficient delivery of these services is especially important to vulnerable populations, such as racial and ethnic minorities, low-income populations, and the medically underserved that depend on an increasingly fragmented system of care. This special issue of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved is dedicated to exploring innovative models and methods that have the potential to improve health care for vulnerable populations, eliminate differences in the quality of care, and improve health outcomes.

A key goal of this special issue is also to distinguish innovative quality improvement strategies that relate to clinical care outcomes, health systems delivery, organization efficiencies, financing models, medical errors, patient safety, and communications. Quality improvement research and implementation of findings will enhance the delivery of patient care, improve safety and satisfaction, and reduce costs by increasing efficiencies and improving health outcomes among vulnerable and medically underserved populations dependent on existing safety-net systems of care.

Delivering evidence-based therapeutic interventions via quality health care is essential to improving the health outcomes of vulnerable populations. Measures, methodologies, and tools to achieve these objectives must be identified, investigated, and validated so that research findings and lessons learned can be put into practice rapidly. We believe the articles contained in this issue will enhance the knowledge and delivery of health care to all populations, especially vulnerable populations in safety-net settings.