Aligning Forces for Quality

Puget Sound, WA

The intensity of health care services received has much to do with rising health care costs. Many health conditions have many treatment options, some being more costly than others. One example is back pain. There are multiple treatment options, including surgery, physical therapy, anti-inflammatory medication, and MRI or CT scans. There is no simple rule for which is the best option in a given situation for a patient.

…the best decisions require shared decision-making.

Risks and benefits vary for each treatment option—...

Puget Sound Health Alliance Leaps into 2013

The Puget Sound Health Alliance (PSHA), a member of Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q), has opened the New Year with a series of exciting events including the unveiling of its new public reporting website and the release of its second comprehensive medical group survey.

With a format focused on user-friendly access, the Alliance’s newly redesigned Community Checkup website to present its trustworthy information on quality care in the state of Washington. The site encourages people to take a more active role in their health by promoting steps for consumers to ensure they...

Is More Always Better? Puget Sound probes one of the most important questions in health care

For more than 20 years, the Dartmouth Atlas Project (www.dartmouthatlas.org) has focused on regional variations in the quality of health care services delivered across the United States. This research has emphasized that too often supply drives demand. Patients receive surgeries, tests, and procedures they may not need and that sometimes cause harm, which drives costs up and quality down. While the results are eye opening, few who provide and pay for health care appear to have acted on this information for younger,...

The Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) initiative in Seattle is led by the Puget Sound Health Alliance (the Alliance). The Alliance, an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in December 2004, is a regional partnership that combines the expertise of private and public employers, physicians, hospitals, consumers, health plans, and other stakeholders. The Alliance covers five counties that comprise the Puget Sound region; King, Kitsap, Pierce, Snohomish, and Thurston. More than 160 organizations and individuals have joined the Alliance thus far. The mission of the collaborative organization is to build a strong leadership network among these partners to promote health and high-quality health care.

Visit the Alliance Website Here.

Visit the Public Reporting Website Here.

Contact Us

Puget Sound, WA

Puget Sound Health Alliance

600 Stewart Street, Suite 824

Seattle, WA 98101

206-448-2570

Susie Dade M.P.A.

Puget Sound Health Alliance

Deputy Director and AF4Q Project Director

Contact Susie

Mr. John Gallagher

Puget Sound Health Alliance

Director, Communication and Development

Contact John

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Transformation Has Begun

Pat Mastors on May 17, 2013 14:11

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2013/05/measuring-patient-engagement-ken-schwartz.html

Amy Romano on May 9, 2013 10:57

Childbirth Connection has released the results of our Listening to Mothers Survey. There's lots of fuel for the transformation in here. Please check it out and share.

Tanya Alteras on May 14, 2013 10:51

The Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project is proud to announce the launch of its new website, which has been redesigned to better reflect our strategies and priorities, improve navigability (including a new resource library), and allow us to more easily highlight activities, topics and events of interest. As a collaboration of consumer and employer groups working toward a common goal of ensuring access to publicly reported information on the performance of health care providers, our mission is to strengthen the voice of those who get care and pay for care in the quest for higher quality, more affordable health care. Check out the new site and while you are there, read our most recent issue brief, “What Do We Say When We Talk About Health Care Quality?” http://healthcaredisclosure.org

Anne Weiss on May 16, 2013 07:15

Patrick McCabe on May 14, 2013 11:19

You saw the HUGE variation in hospital price data last week -- now what? Susan Dentzer will moderate an RWJF-sponsored webinar on Wednesday, May 15. Sign up now (it's free!).

Chuck Alston on May 13, 2013 12:34

RWJF's Consumer Purchaser Disclosure project responds to WSJ op-ed's critique of the CMS readmissions program. See below:

Mark Zocchi on May 10, 2013 18:52

Excellent examples of how health care data is being transformed from abstract information into actionable knowledge. Great discussion today at the AF4Q National Meeting in Chicago. Follow #AF4Q on Twitter. Thank you to @advocatehealth , Quality Quest for Health , @communitycarenc & @CIVHC_News for sharing with us. Meeting materials available at : http://forces4quality.org/materials

Jeanne Pinder on May 10, 2013 13:57

Pricing transformation: Join us at clearhealthcosts.com, and the amazing Brian Lehrer show @ WNYC radio, with our project crowdsourcing the price of mammograms. We were on Morning Edition at WNYC this morning. Here's a link: please share it on out! http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/blogs/scrapbook/2013/may/03/help-us-find-cost-mammograms/

Angelia Bowman on May 10, 2013 12:45

What's the "secret sauce" for Alliance building? Denise Cavanaugh, a management and organizational development expert, offered hands-on support to AF4Q Alliances in securing stakeholder engagement in a competitive market. Together, Alliances discussed how goals and roles for Alliance members and leadership change over time and how the norms of an organization influence stakeholder engagement and collaboration. In looking forward to sustainability, Denise and the participants talked about levels of collaboration and how Alliances can build and manage relationships to remain nimble and effective in an ever changing world. Resources from this session are available on the AF4Q site here: http://forces4quality.org/materials. Follow #AF4Q on Twitter to join the conversation!

Lindsay Wolfe on May 10, 2013 11:57

October 1 looms large for health care professionals awaiting the launch of Health Insurance Exchanges. A panel of experts at the Aligning Forces National Meeting posed several key questions on everyone's mind: 1. How will federal and state politics affect the roll out of the exchanges? 2. Which health systems and health plans will participate? What will the networks look like? 3. Will exchanges hit their enrollment targets--if you build it, will they come? 4. How will states support consumers as they fall in and out of eligibility? 5. How will the math work: Who will enroll, what will their risk be, and ultimately, are the exchanges sustainable? Amid this uncertainty, the role of AF4Q and similar regional health collaboratives is crucial. AF4Q's efforts to keep quality and value information relevant, and at the forefront of the conversation, will be especially important. For more information about AF4Q, and our work to improve the quality and value of health care across America, visit www.forces4quality.org.

Fatema Salam on May 9, 2013 14:47

Want to learn more about the innovative partnerships community organizations have developed with their states? Engaging speakers from Maryland, North Carolina and Oregon shared their secrets of success today at the AF4Q National Meeting. Resources from this session are available on the AF4Q site here: http://forces4quality.org/materials. Follow #AF4Q on Twitter to follow the conversation!

Aliza Norcross on May 9, 2013 10:21

This afternoon at the AF4Q National Meeting in Chicago, attendees will have the opportunity to learn all about partnering with grantmakers from foundations who have already chosen to fund work in the health care world. Kelly Dunkin, VP of Philanthropy at The Colorado Health Foundation, Anne Monroe, President of the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York and Denise San Antonio Zeman, President and CEO of Saint Luke's Foundation will share their insights and advice on how Alliances can effectively sell their work. These decision makers will discuss relationship building with local funders, the nuts and bolts of approaching a foundation, and expanding circles of partners. This session is all about gaining the inside scoop of what foundations value, and how AF4Q Alliances can leverage the important work they do. You can access handouts from this session by visiting the AF4Q website (http://forces4quality.org/materials).

Deborah Roseman on May 9, 2013 09:52

What does it take to make a successful transition from initial grant funding to ongoing sustainable support? Let's learn from those who’ve been there! This morning's session at the AF4Q national meeting offers lessons of experience, regardless of your project’s size, scope or structure. Sarah Gardner, a representative of the Western New York AF4Q alliance, will ask the sustainability questions on alliances' minds. Polly Seitz, director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Local Funding Partnerships (LFP) initiative, will share lessons from the more than 350 projects funded under LFP—which ones are still going strong, and what do they have in common? Joan Cleary will provide a closer look at one LFP project-- the Minnesota Community Health Worker Alliance. Finally, Micky Tripathi, of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, will offer a different example of a funding transition-- from a large grant to a consulting model. See the AF4Q website for the session materials! http://forces4quality.org/national-meeting-session-handout-what-it-takes-characteristics-sustainable-efforts

Michael Painter on May 9, 2013 08:55

Good morning, Chicago! Chris Rowland led a great fun run this morning. Now to the Aligning Forces national meeting! (and there were quite a few walkers too). No excuses!

Pat Mastors on May 7, 2013 13:57

http://islandsofexcellence.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-do-patients-really-want.html

Dylan Nelson on May 8, 2013 07:11

CMS released data on hospital-specific charges for the top 100 billed discharges at 3,000 hospitals today. I haven't had a chance to play around with the data set (FY2011), but this looks to be a step in the right direction. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/hospital-prices-cost-differences_n_3232678.html

Leah Binder on May 2, 2013 16:42

Medicare data belongs to us. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-02/u-s-to-delete-data-on-life-threatening-mistakes-from-website.html

E-Patient Dave deBronkart on May 3, 2013 23:15

Susannah Fox seeks input from people with practical experience (Aligning Forces, anyone?) - http://e-patients.net/archives/2013/05/how-do-older-lower-income-patients-learn.html

Rob Johnson on May 3, 2013 13:42

E-Patient Dave deBronkart on May 3, 2013 13:04

AND, in the "transformation must be STOPPED" category: This scumbag private equity firm, now in the hospital biz, decided it can't make enough money from a proposed acquisition, so it gave up - and now it's SUING BLUE CROSS for not paying enough to make the firm's deal profitable enough! If you wonder why medical costs keep rising, think about scumbags like this who WANT prices higher. And will SUE over it! From Paul Levy's blog: http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/2013/05/this-story-was-not-from-onion.html

E-Patient Dave deBronkart on May 2, 2013 17:40

A request: In Sugata Mitra's amazing TED Prize talk he gave slum kids a computer and walked away - they learned. A commenter on my Forbes post below said "Sure, but just spouting things from blog posts doesn't mean they could *answer questions.*" He's a Berkeley biochem professor and his question seems reasonable. Anyone know enough about Mitra, or about education/learning, to discuss?? btw, I'm THRILLED that the post has gotten over 100 tweets! http://www.forbes.com/sites/epatientdave/2013/05/01/dare-we-put-information-and-tools-in-untrained-hands/

Bill Winfrey on April 24, 2013 16:22

"Surveys have repeatedly confirmed that many doctors habitually tell insurers blatant lies on behalf of their patients — and feel perfectly fine, even righteous, about doing so. The insurer, for example, is refusing to pay for an essential test or medication unless the doctor writes down a bogus diagnosis the patient does not have. Nicolas Tavaglione and Dr. Samia A. Hurst, both at the Institute for Biomedical Ethics at Geneva University Medical School in Switzerland, argued that lying for a patient under such circumstances was not only ethically permissible but mandatory. Helping a patient takes precedence over all other considerations, they wrote. Telling the truth would be “honoring an ideal principle in a nonideal world.” What should be done in these types of situations? When is a white lie permissible? An ongoing series starts here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/the-lies-we-tell-in-the-exam-room/?smid=tw-share via Adnan Hussain

Anne Weiss on May 2, 2013 11:41

Katherine Browne on May 1, 2013 13:49

New resource released today from Aligning Forces! "Tactics for Engaging Employers in Community Alliances" serves as a helpful how-to, offering 8 specific tactics based on what the AF4Q Alliances have been doing to attract and retain employers as partners. It includes tips, lessons learned, and examples from the field to help implement each tactic. http://bit.ly/12JZxTj

Rob Johnson on May 1, 2013 13:30