Maine
Eastern Maine Medical Center placed "Blue Feet" along the corridors of their TCAB pilot unit to help patients know how far they are walking. Patients are often asked to walk a specific distance a specified number of times each day as part of their treatment plan. The "Blue Feet" help patients know exactly how far they have walked. This is an easy and inexpensive intervention developed by the staff on EMMC TCAB unit.
The performance measurement and public reporting for the Maine AF4Q alliance is spearheaded by the Maine Health Management Coalition (MHMC) and provides a great example of using community-level quality measurement to create a health provider tier program. The plan sponsor members of MHMC use the MHMC quality measures to create benefit design incentives such as co-pay waivers to direct consumers toward high quality primary care physician practices and hospitals. In 2011, the MHMC is adding a cost measure for hospitals, and some of the plan sponsors are using the quality and cost measures...
To date, the Maine AF4Q alliance has focused its consumer engagement efforts on informing people that quality measures are publicly available and can be used to select a health care provider and educating and encouraging consumers to use information available through the consumer-friendly and popular public reporting website, www.GetBetterMaine.org. Now, the Maine AF4Q alliance is conducting a statewide, sustained consumer campaign that engages Maine people to take specific actions needed to improve their...
The Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) initiative in Maine is led by Maine Quality Counts (QC), in partnership with the Maine Health Management Coalition (MHMC) and the Dirigo Health Agency’s Maine Quality Forum (MQF). Established in 2004 by a network of 35 organizations, QC is a multi-stakeholder statewide regional health care collaborative committed to working across organizations and communities to improve health care systems and outcomes for the people of Maine. QC, MHMC and MQF work to coordinate existing but disparate efforts across the state that promote local, coordinated systems of care and the resources that support them. The goals of the Maine AF4Q Alliance are to improve health status, promote consistent delivery of high quality care, improve access to health care and contain costs.
Visit the Alliance Website Here.
Visit the Alliance Public Reporting Website Here.