Health care leaders in Washington State have been working for over a decade to rein in rising health care spending. The Washington Health Alliance has made strong progress toward transparency in quality reporting. Increasing price transparency may be the key to stopping, or even reversing, the trend of increasing health care costs in the state.
At the same time, the Washington Health Alliance has focused on identifying value in terms of patient experience, quality, and price. The Alliance has published several comprehensive reports, called “Community Checkups,” that give comparative data on health plans and provider organizations. They show how each medical practice stacks up on a variety of measures, such as diabetes care, prevention, avoidance of unnecessary imaging and use of antibiotics, and patient experience. Hospitals are evaluated on how they perform on care, for conditions including pneumonia and heart failure. Efforts are producing healthier communities and substantial cost savings. Read more here.