AQA Meeting
Summary
Washington, DC
May 16, 2012
The AQA, formerly known as the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance, met on May 16, 2012 in Washington, DC. The minutes from this meeting are below.
Introduction
The AQA, formerly known as the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance, came
together on May 16 for the first all-membership meeting of 2012. The meeting
started off with updates from the AQA Steering Group around the strategic plan,
governance, and finance. Participants also received updates from the working
groups on (1) Measures and Improvement and (2) Reporting. They received updates
on the work that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the
National Quality Forum (NQF), and the Quality Alliance Steering Committee are
doing on measure endorsement, alignment, prioritization, and implementation and
updates on the work of the NQF's Measure Applications Partnership and the CMS
Technical Advisory Panel on the Assessment of CMS Quality Measures. Finally,
participants heard presentations on three innovative approaches to care
delivery.
The meeting was chaired by Carolyn Clancy, Director, Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Clancy welcomed participants and said
that 2012 was starting with a new sense of purpose amid the evolving landscape
of health care.
Clancy said that AHRQ recently released its annual health care
disparities and quality reports. She said that, for the first time, the recently
released reports contained chapters on care coordination and patient
centeredness. Clancy highlighted the four key themes from the reports, which
she said emphasize the need to accelerate progress:
- Health care quality and access are suboptimal (especially for
minority and low-income groups).
- While quality is improving, access and disparities are barely
moving at all.
- There is urgent need to focus on reducing disparities.
- Progress is uneven with respect to the eight national priority
areas.
Clancy added that while there is some overall movement in the right
direction, it is minimal in comparison to the rate of increase on health care
spending. This is a disconnect that the public and policymakers are seeing, she
said.
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