Appendix B: Better Quality Information
Pilot Profiles
California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting
Initiative, San Francisco, California
Mission
The California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting
Initiative was convened to help consumers and employers make informed health
care purchasing decisions through its mission to collect and report comparable,
reliable performance data.
Overview
As a collaborative of health care purchasers,
plans, and providers managed by the Pacific Business Group on Health, the California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting Initiative seeks to:
- Collect and report standardized, reliable health plan and
provider performance data.
- Promote the use of accurate and comparable quality measures
within health care.
- Create efficiency in data collection, leading to reduced burden
and cost to all participants.
- Provide a source for expert advice to consumer reporting
entities.
Convened in 1993 by the Pacific Business Group
on Health, the California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting Initiative is
governed by an executive committee with equal representation from purchasers,
plans, and providers that oversees all projects and determines overall policy
and strategy. A reporting committee advises the executive committee on all
matters of internal and public reporting, whereas various project committees ensure
that overall requirements and objectives of the projects are achieved.
California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting Initiative stakeholders include
Pacific Business Group on Health participating employers, representing nearly 3
million California employees, retirees, and their families; the major
California health plans; and provider organizations.
Data Experience
The California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting
Initiative has more than 10 years of experience collecting and pooling
performance data at the health plan and medical group levels and, more
recently, at the physician level. Eight health plans representing more than 85
percent of the commercial health maintenance organization population in California participate in a variety of the cooperative's data collection projects, and many
plans participate in several different projects. In 2003, the Pacific Business
Group on Health started collecting individual physician-level patient
experience data and reporting performance feedback results to providers from 12
groups. In 2006, the California cooperative reported results from more than
3,000 individual physicians from 27 groups.
Performance Measurement
Since 1997 the California Cooperative Healthcare
Reporting Initiative has advanced physician-level performance measurement in California and is currently using a survey tool based on the Consumer Assessment of
Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Clinician and Group Survey tool in
physician-level measurement. The cooperative's work in California has informed
the CAHPS survey development process. In particular, the cooperative and
Pacific Business Group on Health staff have actively worked to develop the
CAHPS as part of an effort to create a nationally standardized tool for
measuring patient experience at the group, physician, and practice-site levels.
Reporting and Performance
Improvement
The California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting
Initiative has issued annual performance feedback reports since 1994. These
reports, conducted through multiple reporting vehicles, compare the performance
of the participating health plans on specific measures. Physicians receive
feedback reports by individual health plan members of the cooperative and their
respective medical groups. The cooperative's 2005 Report on Quality included results for each participating plan as compared to the national mean,
national 75th percentile, and national 90th percentile, for the following
clinical topics:
Chronic Care |
Preventive |
Diabetes care |
Immunizations
for children and teens |
Asthma care |
Prenatal
care |
Antidepressant medication |
Postpartum
care |
Mental illness |
Breast
and cervical cancer screening |
High blood pressure treatment |
Chlamydia |
Beta blocker treatment |
Colorectal
cancer screening |
Cholesterol management |
Smoking
cessation |
Appropriate treatment for children with upper respiratory infection |
Influenza
immunizations |
Appropriate testing for children with
pharyngitis |
|
Osteoporosis |
|
Impact and Accomplishments
- The California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting Initiative is the
main source of data for California's Office of the Public Advocate consumer
report card, the official health plan and medical group report card for the
State.
- Employers, such as CalPERS and Wells Fargo, use the cooperative's
data in their plan chooser tools for employees and their dependents.
- The California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting Initiative
produces physician group performance data that are used by Integrated
Healthcare Association pay for performance.
- The California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting Initiative
spawned a multistakeholder quality improvement collaborative, the California
Quality Collaborative, whose mission is to advance the quality and efficiency
of patient care in California through collaboration.
- The Pacific Business Group on Health has been actively involved
in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality-funded CAHPS development work
to create a nationally standardized tool for measuring patient experience with
care at the group, physician, and practice-site levels.
Center for Health Information and Research-Arizona State University Phoenix, Arizona
Mission
The Center for Health Information and Research
provides all health care stakeholders with information that enables quality
improvement activities at the policy and the practice level.
Overview
The Center for Health Information and Research
is an academic-based research group at Arizona State University that is the
home of Arizona HealthQuery, a community health data system. This data system,
a voluntary collaboration of health care providers, insurers, employers, and a
variety of State entities, offers a comprehensive view of the relative
performance of all stakeholders in advancing quality, efficiency,
effectiveness, and productivity. Arizona HealthQuery, a patient-centric
dataset, offers the unique ability to track patients across time, providers,
and payers.
As a collaborative venture, the center promotes
a consensus-based approach with robust input, communication, and outreach to
the provider community. From the beginning, physician and hospital leaders have
actively participated in the effort, with partners pledging to use quality,
outcome, and value measures to expand the existing Arizona HealthQuery
database.
Data Experience
The aim of the Arizona HealthQuery project is to
develop and maintain a community health data system that houses essential and
comprehensive health information for each resident of Arizona. The system is
unique for its ability to provide continuously updated health care information
and to link patients across systems and over time. The Arizona HealthQuery
database began in the early 1990s, has been in production in its current form
since 2003, and currently integrates data from a large number of data sources.
Performance Measurement
In 2007, the Center for Health Information and
Research began reporting measures related to breast, colorectal, and cervical
cancer screening as well as to coronary artery disease. It plans to expand its
measures related to heart failure, diabetes, asthma, and depression.
Reporting and Performance
Improvement
Many studies have been conducted using the
Arizona HealthQuery data warehouse. Most recently, The Effect of AHCCCS
Disenrollment on Health Care Utilization in Maricopa County found that
enrollment in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCS, was
associated with decreased emergency department use and decreased
hospitalization as enrollees received more care through routine visits. The
report also found that the decision to change eligibility and to disenroll
members produces the opposite effect: more emergency department use, more
hospitalizations, and less routine care.
In the first phase of the AQA* pilot, Center for Health Information and Research reports will be based on the
performance of primary care physicians in Maricopa County, which represents
about 60 percent of Arizona's population, according to 2004 U.S. Census
population estimates.
Impact and Accomplishments
- The Center for Health Information and Research has robust health
plan participation, including those actively involved in the AQA (for example,
Health Net of Arizona, CIGNA, Humana, and PacifiCare), enabling natural
synergies with AQA activities.
- Engagement of employer support has been cultivated. Employer
support is driven by the Human Resources Policy Association, a national
organization of 260 chief human resource officers representing the Nation's
largest employers. The center's current employer partners include the Honeywell
Corporation and the State of Arizona.
- The Center for Health Information and Research and Arizona
HealthQuery have an established track record in data aggregation and reporting
at the community level, offering a strong platform on which to build a broader
data aggregation, public reporting, and quality improvement agenda. The
existing database already includes administrative and encounter data for more
than 9 million patients, including statewide Medicaid claims data.
*Formerly the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance, this organization is now known simply as AQA because its mission was broadened to incorporate all areas of physician practice (www.aqaalliance.org).
Indiana Health Information Exchange, Indianapolis, Indiana
Mission
The Indiana Health Information Exchange is
committed to using information technology and shared clinical information to
improve health care in Indiana, enhance health research, and be a national
model of health information exchange.
Overview
The Indiana Health Information Exchange is a
nonprofit venture supported by a collaboration of Indiana health care
institutions. Its vision is to use information technology and shared clinical
information to:
- Improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of health care in the
State of Indiana.
- Create unparalleled research capabilities for health researchers.
- Exhibit a successful model of health information exchange for the
rest of the country.
The Indiana Health Information Exchange was
founded in 2004 by a collaboration of 13 institutions representing hospitals,
providers, researchers, public health organizations, and economic development
groups. The Regenstrief Institute, BioCrossroads, and the five charter hospital
systems are key stakeholders. Other stakeholders include local and State health
departments, the State medical society, community health networks, the local
quality improvement organization, and the Employers' Forum of Indiana.
Data Experience
The Indiana Health Information Exchange covers a
nine-county Indianapolis metropolitan statistical area in central Indiana. Physicians participating in the exchange cover roughly 60 percent of the
fee-for-service population (mostly self-insured employers), 16 percent of the
uninsured, 12 percent of the Medicare fee-for-service population, and 12
percent of the managed care population. The Indiana Health Information
Exchange's data aggregation efforts are built upon those of the Indiana Network
for Patient Care, the oldest, largest, and most successful health information
exchange.
Through the initiative with Indiana Network for
Patient Care, the exchange aggregates clinical data from several different
sources, including hospitals, laboratories, and public health agencies. These
data are then complemented with claims data from payers for the exchange's
pay-for-performance project.
Performance Measurement
A consensus of medical directors from primary
care practice groups and health plans determined the measures used to start the
pay-for-performance program. The Indiana Health Information Exchange drew from
established nationally accepted measures, such as those developed by the AQA,
the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service's Doctor's Office Quality
Information Technology program, and the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information
Set.
The criteria for choosing measures include
national acceptability, clinical validity, relevance to payers and consumers,
likelihood for improvement, and ability to measure outcomes. As the measures
are finalized, the AQA's "Parameters for Selecting Ambulatory Care Performance
Measures" will be used as a guideline.
Reporting and Performance
Improvement
The Indiana Health Information Exchange's first
milestone accomplishment is a community-wide clinical messaging service
providing physicians with a single source for clinical results for laboratory
and pathology, radiology, electrocardiogram reports, transcriptions, and
emergency department and hospital encounter information from all participating
central Indiana hospitals. The exchange will report to providers and consumers,
with provider reports including summaries of provider performance on the
included measures as well as individual patient-level reminders. Consumer
reports will include physician group and community-level data.
Impact and Accomplishments
- The Indiana Health Information Exchange's stakeholder and
partner, the Regenstrief Institute, is an internationally recognized
informatics and health care research organization. Regenstrief's research
scientists have developed the Regenstrief Medical Records System, one of the
nation's first electronic medical record systems. Bridges to Excellence
citations from investigators at the Regenstrief Institute account for
approximately one third of Bridges to Excellence evidence.
- The exchange collaborates with the Indianapolis Patient Safety
Coalition to address several important patient safety issues in the inpatient
setting.
- The Indiana Health Information Exchange participates in
nationwide knowledge-sharing efforts, such as Connecting Communities for Better
Health.
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners, Boston, Massachusetts
Mission
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners improves
the quality of health care services to the residents of Massachusetts through
broad-based collaboration among health care stakeholders.
Overview
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners was
established in 1995 by Massachusetts health care leaders who recognized the
importance of valid, comparable measures to drive improvement. As a coalition
of physicians, hospitals, health plans, consumers, purchasers, and government
agencies working together to promote improvement in the quality of health care
services, the coalition provides physicians and consumers with comparative
performance information on physician groups and practices. The coalition brings
together a large number of Massachusetts health care organizations, including
the State's Executive Office of Health and Human Services, its medical society,
hospital association, physician leaders, and several major health plans, all of
which collaborate to endorse and disseminate a variety of evidence-based
practice guidelines and quality improvement tools.
Data Experience
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners has been
aggregating physician-level data for primary care physicians across health
plans since 2003. The coalition has reported on the comparative performance of
primary care physicians on both Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information
Set (HEDIS) and patient experience measures.
The Massachusetts coalition has developed a
unique algorithm to group each individual physician into the appropriate
practice site, medical group, and physician network. This allows Massachusetts
Health Quality Partners to aggregate and report data at various levels of care
from individual physician practices to physicians' offices, medical groups, and
networks.
The coalition's data reporting covers roughly
5,000 adult and pediatric primary care physicians in five health plans serving
commercially insured enrollees in health maintenance organizations and
point-of-service products. More than 50 percent of commercially insured
residents were enrolled in these plans during the period covered by the most
recent report.
Performance Measurement
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners' online
report, Quality Insights: Health Care Performance in Massachusetts,
presents both clinical performance measures and patient experience measures.
The clinical measures are drawn from the HEDIS Measure Set developed by the
National Committee for Quality Assurance.
Patient experience measures are fielded from a
survey instrument comprised of the best performing items from two validated
surveys, Ambulatory Care Experiences Survey and the Consumer Assessment of
Healthcare Providers and Systems Clinician and Group Survey. The instrument
covers domains characterizing patients' experiences with their primary care
physicians, including quality of physician-patient interactions and
organizational features of care.
To further analyze performance measures and
quality metrics, Massachusetts Health Quality Partners has forged partnerships
with Tufts New England Medical Center, Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, and the RAND Corporation.
Reporting and Performance Improvement
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners completed
four cycles (2003–2006) of comparative HEDIS clinical performance reports to
physician groups in Massachusetts, encompassing 2001 to 2006. In February 2005,
the Massachusetts coalition issued its first public comparative performance
report of 9 physician networks for 16 measures, including preventive care and
management of certain chronic diseases. In February 2006, Massachusetts Health
Quality Partners publicly released HEDIS clinical results for 150 medical
groups. Performance stars are assigned to each group based on the group's
performance against three benchmarks: the national 50th percentile, the
national 90th percentile, and the Massachusetts statewide rate.
The current report includes the following HEDIS
measures:
Chronic Care Measures |
Preventive Measures |
Asthma medication for children and adults |
Well
visits for infants, children, and adolescents |
Cholesterol screening after a heart attack |
Breast cancer screening |
Depression in adults |
Cervical cancer screening |
Diabetes care for adults |
Chlamydia screening |
In March 2006, Massachusetts Health Quality
Partners publicly launched results from its first statewide survey of patient
experience. The reports present results for more than 400 practice sites.
Performance stars for patient experience reporting tells how a physician's
office compares to all the other physicians' offices in the State that were
part of the coalition's survey.
The current report includes the following
patient experience measures:
Quality of Physician-Patient Interactions |
Organizational
Features of Care |
Communication |
Organizational
access |
Integration of care |
Visit-based
continuity |
Knowledge of the patient |
Clinical
team |
Health promotion |
Office
staff |
Impact and Accomplishments
- For more than 10 years, Massachusetts Health Quality Partners has
brought together multiple stakeholders, often with disparate agendas, who have
effectively worked together to produce trusted, comparable performance measures
that help drive health care quality improvement in Massachusetts.
- Massachusetts Health Quality Partners has successfully
implemented five public releases of performance information: four with
physician performance information and one with hospital performance
information. The coalition has designed a user-friendly Web site vetted by a
health literacy specialist. The site incorporates findings from consumer focus
groups the Massachusetts coalition has conducted to make information accessible
and useful. Massachusetts Health Quality Partners has also developed a process
to vet the public report and the press release with the coalition's
multistakeholder members.
- Massachusetts Health Quality Partners has developed a Web-based
reporting process to provide physician organizations with performance reports.
The coalition reports annually to primary care physicians about performance on
clinical HEDIS measures at the physician network, medical group, practice site,
and, if requested by the medical group, at the individual physician level. The Massachusetts coalition reports to primary care physicians and, beginning in 2008, will
report to cardiologists, orthopedists and obstetricians/gynecologists about
performance on the patient experience survey.
- Massachusetts Health Quality Partners has successfully aggregated
health plan claims data and attributed commercial health maintenance
organization, point of service, and preferred provider organization patients to
primary care and specialist physicians using a visit-based methodology to
assign patients. It is the first organization in the country to implement this
methodology, which enables it to broaden the patient experience survey to
include preferred provider organization members and patients seeing
specialists. The physician support and buy-in Massachusetts Health Quality
Partners has garnered through its collaborative process means that physicians
are more likely to embrace the measures resulting from this process.
- The Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative selected Massachusetts
Health Quality Partners, in partnership with Computer Sciences Corporation, to
pioneer efforts to capture data from electronic health records and translate
them into clinical performance measures for use in comparative performance
reporting for physicians. The collaborative brings together the State's major
health care stakeholders to establish an electronic health record system that
enhances quality, efficiency, and safety for health care in Massachusetts.
- Massachusetts Health Quality Partners is a founding member of the
Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement, an association of regional health
improvement collaboratives from around the country.
- Supported by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality,
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners is providing data to Harvard researchers
to analyze the impact of electronic health records on clinical quality.
Minnesota Community Measurement, St. Paul, Minnesota
Mission
Minnesota Community Measurement accelerates the
improvement of health by publicly reporting health care information.
Overview
Since 2002, Minnesota Community Measurement's
collaborative, community approach has encouraged medical groups to improve
health care quality by publicly reporting on several measures. All seven of Minnesota's nonprofit health insurance plans participated in developing the coalition's
initial reports, with the Minnesota Medical Association joining the effort in
2005. Since that initial report publication, a health plan in South Dakota and
two county-based purchasing organizations have provided data to Minnesota
Community Measurement.
The resulting nonprofit community-based
organization has a 16-member board of directors, with representation from
health plans, hospitals, physicians, employers, business groups, and consumer
organizations. The Reporting Advisory Committee (consisting of physicians and
health care quality improvement experts) advises the board on the scope of data
and measures. A separate workgroup of data experts from health plans looks at
technical issues around data and reporting.
Data Experience
Minnesota Community Measurement data reporting
covers more than 100 provider groups representing 700 clinic sites in Minnesota and bordering counties. These groups cover roughly 90 percent of primary care
delivered in the State. Minnesota Community Measurement has aggregated data
across eight health plans and two county-based purchasing organizations,
including commercial health maintenance organizations, point of service
organizations, preferred provider organizations, Medicaid and State Children's
Health Insurance Program managed care, Medicare Advantage, Medicare Cost, and
Medicare dual eligibles.
The Minnesota
coalition reports all measures at the community and medical group levels and is
committed to adopting and incorporating nationally accepted standards.
Presently, the coalition is working with eight health plans as well as with
several of the Bridges to Excellence program's health information networks to
obtain additional data. These data are submitted directly to Minnesota Community
Measurement from the medical groups and posted on the coalition's Web site at
the clinic-site level.
Performance Measurement
The Minnesota Community Measurement 2005 report
assessed 10 clinical topics and included more than 40 individual measures.
Measures include a composite measure for optimal diabetes care. This composite
measures patients who have met all five treatment targets to decrease their
risk of developing cardiovascular disease and other complications of diabetes.
The coalition uses physician-defined standards of care endorsed by the
Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement.
Reporting and Performance
Improvement
Since 2003, Minnesota Community Measurement has
been reporting on medical groups, with its first public report released in
2004. The coalition's 2005 Health Care Quality Report, based on calendar year
2004 data, compared each medical group against a State benchmark as well as
against all other medical groups. The report included the following measures:
Chronic Care Measures |
Preventive Measures |
Optimal diabetes care composite (overall diabetes care) |
Immunizations
for children and teens |
Use of effective medications for asthma |
Well-baby
visits |
Depression medication management |
Breast
and cervical cancer screening |
High blood pressure treatment |
Chlamydia screening |
New measures that were approved for reporting in
2006 (calendar year 2005 data) include:
Chronic Care Measures |
Preventive Measures |
Cardiovascular disease care composite |
Colorectal
cancer screening |
Appropriate treatment for children with upper respiratory infection |
Cancer
screening composite |
Appropriate testing for children with
pharyngitis |
|
Impact and Accomplishments
Minnesota Community Measurement is uniquely
situated to rapidly implement data aggregation and reporting on new measures
and to demonstrate the impact these efforts can have on improving the health of
the community. Key accomplishments and impact on Minnesota's health care system
include:
- Providing performance information that encompasses roughly 90
percent of primary care delivered in the State.
- Being one of the first organizations in the country to publicly
report community-wide health care measure results by medical group.
- Having strong physician support as a cornerstone of success, as
evidenced by physician board representation and leadership roles in advisory
groups.
- Having as founding members all licensed Minnesota health plans
that continue to provide direct financial support as well as a significant
level of in-kind support through data collection and reporting.
- Participating with the Minnesota Business Partnership on
developing cost-of-care measures.
- Collaborating with the State's Department of Human Services to
develop a useful data collection and reporting process and tool for the State's
Medicaid program.
- Operating a Web site for 2 years that provides consumer
information on medical groups across the State, with the site receiving an
estimated 30,000 visits in November 2005.
- Compiling evidence that overall community rates, including all
children's health measures, are improving in Minnesota.
Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare
Quality, Madison, Wisconsin
Mission
The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare
Quality is a voluntary consortium of organizations learning and working
together to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care for the
people of Wisconsin.
Overview
The nonprofit, statewide collaborative was
founded in 2002 by several health delivery systems, each with a large
multispecialty group clinic and tertiary hospital. Encompassing five
geographically distinct markets, the collaborative now includes more than 40
physician groups, hospitals, and health plans, including two of the State's
largest integrated delivery systems.
The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare
Quality is governed by a board of directors and funded by member dues and
grants. It has the active support and participation of the clinical and
administrative leadership of most of Wisconsin's large, multispecialty groups,
representing approximately 42 percent of the licensed physicians in the State.
With more than 40 reporting entities from virtually every region in the State,
the Wisconsin collaborative actively solicits the participation of public and
private sector purchasers in its work, ensuring consumer perspective is
considered in selecting measures and the preparing the public report.
Data Experience
Although membership includes several health
plans and hospitals, the Wisconsin collaborative's primary focus is measuring
and reporting on physician groups. Members have tested and verified reliable
methods of data collection and aggregation within a broad range of physician
group practices. The measurement methodology emphasizes the specification of a
denominator that is population based, representing "all patients, all payers"
for a given condition. This method of reporting generates highly accurate and
actionable information, which in turn has generated a high degree of support
for the collaborative within the physician community in Wisconsin.
Performance Measurement
The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare
Quality has extensive experience in performance measurement at the
physician-group level. Over the past 2 years, quality specialists from the
collaborative's organizations have developed ambulatory care specifications
that join administrative data with more robust clinical results, enabling
health systems to collect and report quality of care results on all patients
under their care. The collaborative's system and method measure the quality of
care administered by health care providers on a given patient population. This
approach offers several valuable outcomes, including the following:
- It provides a system view of performance with the ability to
drill down to provider level.
- It includes all patients within a system in the population.
- It represents all payers.
- It delivers a ready-made patient registry.
- It delivers a roadmap for improvement.
- It provides the foundation for physician pay for performance.
To date, the Wisconsin Collaborative for
Healthcare Quality has developed and reported quality on a number of
conditions, including diabetes, uncomplicated hypertension, postpartum care,
and preventive services (colorectal, mammography, and cervical cancer
screening). Its Web-based Performance & Progress Report (www.wchq.org/reporting/)
consists of a broad and growing collection of performance measures that compare
more than 40 reporting provider organizations. Each measure represents a
specific aspect of care for a defined period that provides a "snapshot" of a
given health care organization's performance in relation to an evidence-based
standard as well as in relation to one another.
Reporting and Performance
Improvement
The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare
Quality 2005 Performance & Progress Report organized the measures
into the following categories:
- Access.
- Patient satisfaction.
- Critical care.
- Pneumonia.
- Diabetes.
- Surgery.
- Health information technology.
- Women's health.
- Heart care.
Reports are available at the physician group,
health plan, and hospital levels. The reporting process, which enables
physician groups to submit results using a secure Web-based data submission
tool, includes two innovative components: a "preview report mechanism" for all
reporting entities to use before data are published and a scalable
infrastructure that supports significant expansion in measures without changing
the reporting platform itself.
The collaborative continues to add participating
entities and expand its measures with its unique measures structured so that
participants can collect data on all patients within a health system regardless
of payer sources, electronic medical record platform, or electronic medical
record level of implementation. In 2006, the Wisconsin collaborative released
results on preventive care services, such as breast, cervical, and colorectal
cancer screening.
Chronic Care Measures |
Preventive Measures |
Blood sugar control and screening |
Breast
cancer screening |
Controlling hypertension |
Cervical cancer screening |
Kidney function monitoring |
Colorectal cancer screening |
Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol testing and monitoring for diabetics |
|
Impact and Accomplishments
- The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality is a founding
member of the Wisconsin Health Information Organization and is responsible for
catalyzing its inception. The Wisconsin Health Information Organization is
building a data repository to support an expansion in reporting on ambulatory
performance. The data will allow providers, employers and consumers to use
measures of resource use and cost of care. When these data are combined with
the clinical quality measures generated by the Wisconsin collaborative,
stakeholders will be able to assess the value of care by looking at cost and
quality over an entire episode of care.
- The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality is one of 14
grant recipients of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Aligning Forces for
Quality initiative.
- The Wisconsin Hospital Association's Check Point and Price Point
initiatives represent a progressive association-based response to the market's
demand for information on the quality and cost of hospital services.
- The National Committee for Quality Assurance's 2005 State of Health Care Quality Report ranked six Wisconsin health maintenance organizations among the
top 50 health plans. In addition, a 2006 report by the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality listed Wisconsin as number one among the 50 States for
overall quality of health care services.
- The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality has
established relationships with key strategic partners, including the Wisconsin
Health Information Organization; the Wisconsin Hospital Association; the
Wisconsin Medical Society; the University of Wisconsin; the Medical College of
Wisconsin; and MetaStar, the Wisconsin Quality Improvement Organization.
Return to Contents
Proceed to Next Section