Blog Post
Government Shutdown: How Might It Affect Public Health Services?
As the budget debate on Capitol Hill continues, NewPublicHealth spoke with the Department of Health and Human Services to get a rundown on a...
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Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q)
Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s signature effort to lift the overall quality of health care in targeted communities, reduce racial and ethnic disparities and provide models for national reform.
AF4Q asks the people who get care, give care and pay for care to work together toward common, fundamental objectives to lead to better care. The 16 geographically, demographically, and economically diverse communities participating in AF4Q together cover 12.5 percent of the U.S. population.
Visit forces4quality.org to learn more.
Contact Information
Aligning Forces for Quality National Program Office
Email: info@forces4quality.org
Phone: (202) 994-8642
Health Games
AF4Q Games to Generate Data Challenge Winners
RWJF challenged video game developers to leverage data from AF4Q, the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program, and other databases to create games that engage patients and health providers in generating new quality data.
More From Aligning Forces for Quality
Beyond Widgets: The Pursuit of Payment Reform
This brief explores models for payment reform, national developments and what some communities are doing to pilot payment reform initiatives.
Read the brief
Bundled Payment: The Quest for Simplicity
Local initiatives are showing how new methods for paying for health care can improve quality and control costs. This paper offers four steps that organizations considering a bundled payment pilot should follow.
Read the brief
Tactics for Engaging Employers in Community Alliances
This brief offers promising tactics for community alliances to attract and retain employers as partners, both as purchasers and as channels for communicating with employees and their families.
Read the brief
Patient Experience of Care: Inventory of Resources
This inventory lists a variety of free resources that are available to support health care organizations in determining what they need to do to improve patient experience and how to implement those improvements.
See the inventory
Improving Health Care Quality and Equity
As many as 85 percent of primary care physicians (PCPs) feel that to achieve good health outcomes, it is as important to address patients’ resource and social constraints as it is to treat their medical conditions.
Webinar
Webinar: Insights from Aligning Forces for Quality
In a recent webinar, local leaders and national experts explained how different Aligning Forces communities are making fundamental changes to enhance care.
Transparency
Measuring and publicly reporting on the quality and cost of care physicians and hospitals provide is crucial to improving the quality and lowering the cost of care nationwide. Our directory provides access to publicly available, free reports with information about the process of delivering care (for example, did patients get all the recommended care?), actual outcome for patients (for example, did patients die or have to return to the hospital?), what patients said in surveys about their experience with physicians or hospitals, and/or cost.
Aligning Forces: Six Years Later
Driving Health Care Transformation in Communities Across America 2012
Can bringing together the people who give care, get care, and pay for care improve quality in America? RWJF’s 16 Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) communities are showing that it can.
This program update from AF4Q discusses and provides examples of the transformative partnerships formed and work achieved since the program launched six years ago.