Programs within the Quality/Equality interest area consist of four major components: 

Aligning Forces for Quality. Aligning Forces for Quality is the core strategy of the Foundation’s longstanding commitment to improve the quality of health care that Americans receive. Through this national initiative, we are working to lift the overall quality of health and health care in targeted communities across the country.

RWJF launched Aligning Forces for Quality in 2006 as an effort to help communities build health care systems where none now exist. The first phase of Aligning Forces provided community leadership teams with grants and substantial expert assistance to help them work with physicians to improve their quality of care, to measure and publicly report on the quality of ambulatory care, and to engage consumers to make informed choices about their own health and health care. The program expanded in June 2008 to include inpatient care, as well as a focus on reducing racial and ethnic gaps in care and enhancing the central role that nursing plays in good health care.

Transparency. While performance measurement and public reporting in quality have become more common, we need far greater collaboration at the federal and local levels to standardize measurement and reporting activities and create measures that are more meaningful to patients, providers and others.

For example, many of the quality measures now in use by health plans and agencies like the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services only capture whether single, process-oriented events happen in the course of a patient's treatment-like whether a heart attack patient receives a beta-blocker in the emergency room, for example. Developing measures that capture full episodes of care, so we can track not only what happened to a heart attack patient in an emergency room, but also the full care experience of that patient, will be increasingly useful. 

Measuring Progress. We are devoting a substantial portion of our portfolio to research, tracking and evaluation. Some of this work will involve:

• using our existing research investments to assess more purposefully progress in the communities engaged by Aligning Forces for Quality;

• issuing targeted solicitations to the field to garner ideas for new interventions and tools to help spur the pace of quality change and transformation.

Communications. We are going to design and execute communications activities and support at multiple levels.

• Local communities, for example, might require different types of targeted assistance with messaging, advocacy and engagement. 

• At the national level, we will actively share the stories and lessons learned from our regional work. 

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What We Don't Fund

• In keeping with Foundation policy, we will give preference to projects developed by public agencies and tax-exempt organizations. 

• We do not accept unsolicited proposals for work related to quality.

Last update: June 2008

• Learn about Our Approach

For more information on the issues RWJF seeks to address, download our complete overview.