The health care reform bill under consideration in the U.S. Senate includes provisions that call for the federal government to collect data on disparity populations.

What's a disparity population? It's any group that tends to get sicker or have worse outcomes than the overall population. It can be defined in terms of race, ethnicity, sex, primary language, and disability status, and it can also apply to rural populations.

The Senate health bill gives the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services or a designee the authority to develop standards for collecting health data in regards to race, ethnicity, sex, primary language, and disability status, as well as rural populations.

It's not clear from the legislative language whether hospitals and health plans will be explicitly required to collect data and then be held accountable. The legislation does say the secretary should consider "minimizing the administrative burdens of data collection and reporting on States, providers, and health plans." We'll have to wait to see how the new rules develop. For now, we rate this promise In the Works.