Featured Consumer Engagement Stories
Labor-Management Groups Drive Delivery System Redesign
The Maine Health Management Coalition (MHMC), a partner in AF4Q Maine, wanted to encourage its members to seek care from the high quality, cost-effective providers MHMC identified. But MHMC encountered three problems: getting people to use t...
Working with Consumers to Tackle Low Back Pain
The Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation (Quality Corp) had already worked with the Oregon Health Authority, Oregon Health Leadership Council, and the Center for Evidence-Based Policy at Oregon Health and Science University to develop an Oregon-specific, evidence-based guideline to help ...
Healthy Memphis Common Table Tackles Food Deserts
Successful multi-stakeholder alliances take many shapes and sizes. In AF4Q, these groups include those who receive care, provide care, and pay for care. The Healthy Memphis Common Table (HMCT)—the Aligning Forces for Quality grantee in Memphis, TN—expanded its alliance to include grocery...
'Your Voice Matters' Continues to Speak Volumes
Continuing its focus on consumer engagement, the Puget Sound Health Alliance (PSHA), through its Your Voice Matters initiative, has invited e-Patient Dave (Dave deBronkart) to put a face and story to its patient empowerment mission. E-Patient Dave is a cancer survivor whose catchphrase, “pa...
Providing Diabetes Self-Management Education in the Workplace
The Greater Detroit Area Health council (GDAHC), which leads the AF4Q initiative in Detroit, wanted to make it more convenient for people in southeast Michigan with diabetes to learn how to manage their care better. Inspired by an earlier effort funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quali...
Step By Step: Creating A Pathway To Better Health
Half of the 135,000 residents in Humboldt County, CA, live outside its small towns. Like many rural areas, Humboldt has significant health challenges, including limited access to certain types of care, hundreds of miles separating some residents from their doctors, and higher rates of those with chr...
Partnering With Patients To Make Decisions About Colorectal Cancer Screening
Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States and the leading cause of cancer deaths among nonsmokers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But in Minnesota, MN Community Measurement has found that only 64 percent of people are ge...
Partnering with Consumer Reports to Empower Patients
October’s issue of Consumer Reports included a special insert of Consumer Reports Health which featured the great measurement and reporting work at MN Community Measurement (MNCM). Covering 552 Minnesota physician group practices, the project studied patient results in cardiovascular disease a...
Wisconsin Continues Partnership with Consumer Reports
Finding information about the quality of the health care offered in your community is hard. Aligning Forces for Quality communities are blazing new trails, making this information more readily available and easier to understand in publicly available reports. These reports help physicians and hospita...
The Importance of Preparing for Change
By embedding the patient’s voice and perspective across the continuum of quality improvement, the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation, the AF4Q initiative leader in Oregon, is transforming the future of ambulatory care. Quality Corp’s Patients and Families as Leaders initiative is cha...