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The Hospital Quality Alliance: Improving Care Through Information (HQA) is a public-private collaboration to improve the quality of care provided by the nation's hospitals by measuring and publicly reporting on that care. This collaboration includes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, and the Association of American Medical Colleges, and is supported by other organizations such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Quality Forum, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, National Association of Children¡¦s Hospitals and Related Institutions, Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project, AFL-CIO, AARP, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, America¡¦s Health Insurance Plans, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, and the National Business Coalition on Health. The goal of the program is to identify a robust set of standardized and easy-to-understand hospital quality measures that would be used by all stakeholders in the healthcare system in order to improve quality of care and the ability of consumers to make informed healthcare choices. An important element of the collaboration, Hospital Compare, a website tool developed to publicly report credible and user-friendly information about the quality of care delivered in the nation¡¦s hospitals, debuted on April 1, 2005 at www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov and www.medicare.gov. The twenty-one measures currently reported on Hospital Compare include ten "starter set?20measures, and additional measures on which hospitals also voluntarily report. The measures reflect recommended treatments for heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care improvement/surgical infection prevention. The ultimate goal of the HQA is to identify a set of quality measures that would be reported by all hospitals, and accepted by all purchasers, oversight and accrediting entities, payers and providers. In the future, additional quality measures will be added to Hospital Compare. Additional information on HQA or Hospital Compare measures can be found at the links or downloads listed below.
Page Last Modified: 10/23/2008 11:30:35 AM
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