NCQA: Accelerating Health Equity Outcomes

From the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) Health Equity Director Bryan O. Buckley DrPH, MPH joins the podcast to share his story and efforts to progress health equity for disadvantaged families across the US.

NCQA is committed to evolving equity in healthcare through services, programs and next generation accreditations aimed at supporting Health Plans, Healthcare, Government and Employers.

On this episode we discuss…

  1. NCQA’s programs that outline how healthcare professionals can improve equity at practices and clinics
  2. The evolution of health equity and why equity is vital to the healthcare ecosystem
  3. How the team at NCQA organizes and reaches their goals

“Think of it like a Justice League. We have so many superheroes involved within our company. Look at them as the health equity champions to help coalesce the work that’s being done in each unit or division, and that in many ways is how we build up our team. Don’t think of it so much as a team, but I like to think of myself as the watchtower really helping to be a space for people to co-collaborate, talk shop, talk about the challenges that we see from different stakeholders and also think about who do we need to partner with, who’s missing at the table and so forth. And so that would be how I define the health equity team. It’s many different people involved in many different departments, really building on that collective intelligence we all need to truly make health equity sustain itself moving forward,” said Buckley.

Dr. Bryan Buckley is a healthcare professional and researcher and is also the Director of Health Equity Initiatives at the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Buckley started his career in equity in public health and is a graduate of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Michigan State University.

Recent Episodes

The Care Anywhere podcast is spotlighting a new global partnership designed to strengthen pediatric nursing education and recognition worldwide. In this episode, host Lea Sims sits down with leaders from TruMerit and the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) to unpack a new pediatric nursing micro-credential pathway launching in 2026, and why it…

Dementia is becoming one of healthcare’s most difficult problems to ignore. As the population ages, more families are finding themselves responsible for loved ones who can no longer manage their own care, communicate symptoms clearly, or navigate the healthcare system. Research shows that people living with dementia are hospitalized far more often than those without it—even…

As hospitals look beyond the ICU to improve outcomes across the entire continuum of care, a key question emerges: how do you expand patient monitoring without overwhelming clinicians with more alarms, more noise, and more work? This episode—part three of a five-part Health and Life Sciences at the Edge series exploring The Future of…