Consumer Engagement
 
At least 7.5 million people have signed up for health coverage through the Affordable Care Act exchanges, and the number is still rising. The question now is where exactly do these patients go to find their affordable care?
 
The Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) program in Detroit, led by the Greater Detroit Area Health Council (GDAHC), is helping its residents easily locate the care they need with its Find MI Care initiative. Patients in Michigan looking for a doctor or other health care services can use the Find MI Care website (...
 
Navigating the health care system can be a challenge for anyone. It’s hard to find a compatible primary care provider. Hospitals are intimidating. Being sick is overwhelming. Cincinnati Aligning Forces for Quality (Cincinnati AF4Q), led by the Health Collaborative, is taking action and empowering consumers to be informed advocates of their health care.
 
To educate patients, help them find a doctor, and help them take the next steps in accessing high- quality care, the Health Collaborative launched a website,...

Looking for a healthy Midwestern community to call your new home? The search is over! According to the Top 100 Best Places to Live by Livability.com, Cincinnati ranked #2 in the nation in the health care category because of its accessible and affordable care. According to Livability.com, “the cities that performed best on this list encourage healthy living by their very structure, as well as the presence of great, affordable care options.” The city’s health care score was 30 points higher than the average health care score of all 100 cities in the ranking. The Cincinnati...

When Cincinnati health leaders planned their community’s Aligning Forces for Quality work, they discovered that people with diabetes weren’t always aware of the recommended care they should be receiving—or whether their doctors provided it.  The Health Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati therefore developed an approach to educate patients and measure the care delivered by local providers to better tackle the disease.

Respected journalist Geri Aston explores how Cincinnati’s physicians, insurers and Fortune 500 companies are working together to...

AF4Q Alliances, are leading multiple initiatives to improve the quality of care while lowering costs in their communities. As part of this effort, some Alliances have launched programs to educate consumers about unnecessary variations in the cost and quality of care. The American Institutes for...

Quality Field Notes features key lessons learned by regional alliances of clinicians, patients, and payers in Aligning Forces for Quality communities as they work to transform local health care and provide models for national reform. The third topic in this series focuses on how engaged patients can lead to improved health and health care. Patients without the skills to manage their...

If you’ve ever had trouble deciding where to go when you or someone you care about needs medical attention, you’re not alone. It’s common to wonder if you should go to the emergency department (ED) or your primary care physician (PCP). Cincinnati Aligning Forces for Quality, led by the Health Collaborative, is helping patients answer this question with the “Make the Right Call” campaign.

The campaign is supporting the Greater Cincinnati community by helping to reduce avoidable ED admissions. Many people who use emergency departments for non-emergencies...

Patients often leave the hospital uneducated and confused about how to care properly for themselves at home, ultimately causing them to be readmitted. The 4.4 million potentially preventable trips to the hospital add $30 billion to US healthcare spending each year. The Aligning Forces for Quality initiative in Maine, led by Maine Quality Counts, is addressing the problem of avoidable readmissions, particularly in heart failure patients, by taking steps to help patients get the care they need through a collaborative approach.
Eight Maine hospitals in the Hospital Quality Network...

Not only do Americans not always get the right care, sometimes we get too much of it. Not all medical procedures are created equal, and sometimes they can hurt us. ShopSmart, a national magazine from the creators of Consumer Reports, encourage readers to use data, including AF4Q public reports, whenever possible to make empowered decisions.

“Data are scarce, but we were able to get info from three states: Massachusetts, Minnesota, and...

Aligning Forces for Quality is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s signature effort to improve the overall quality of health care in targeted communities, reduce racial and ethnic disparities in care, and provide models for national reform. Activities in each of the 16 Aligning Forces for Quality alliance communities are guided by a multistakeholder alliance of consumers, providers, and payers. To achieve goals established at the national and local levels, the alliances integrate local consumers into governance and decision-making, program design and implementation, and information...