Culture of Health Blog

I believe a unique opportunity for a philanthropic organization is to explore the big ideas. We have a freedom that few others have to really experiment and innovate. Even to take big risks in our grant making sometimes. Often, the rewards are insights – they offer a glimpse of how our nation can address some of the most pressing challenges facing our society.  Aligning Forces for Quality is an example of this philosophy in action.”  —Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 

In 2006, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) launched a bold, ten year experiment that became one of its largest philanthropic investments—the Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) initiative which sought to lift the overall quality, equality, and value of health care in 16 communities across the country.

In each AF4Q community, a regional alliance of doctors, patients, consumers, insurers, and employers worked collaboratively to transform their local health care system. Lessons from these transformations were then used to develop national models for reform. Alliances were tasked with addressing five “forces” to enhance quality while reducing costs:

• performance measurement and reporting
• quality improvement
• engaging consumers in their health and health care
• reducing health care disparities
  
• reforming payment

In a Culture of Health, how can communities improve the quality and value of health care? What happens when people who get, give, and pay for health care locally work together? In 2007, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) set out to answer these questions when it launched Aligning Forces for Quality with an audacious goal: To transform the quality, equality, and value of regional health care markets.

Along the way, we explored what happens when the people who get, give, and pay for health care locally, work together. Our investment sparked deep and meaningful change in 16 very different communities across America, and important lessons learned in each and every one. But three lessons in particular helped drive success and can be applied to our work to build a national Culture of Health.

Summer has come at last! Along with all the usual endings and beginnings that come with this time of year, there’s an important new opportunity for those of us who are passionate about improving health care. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 threw out Medicare’s old rules for paying physicians and substituted a new system, one that’s  supposed to reward physicians for delivering high quality, high value care. This is a game-changer many years in the making, but as with any complex new law, the details matter. How will Medicare define and measure high quality, high value care? We can get some hints from CMS’ new strategic vision for physician quality reporting.

If I were granted just one wish by the people who are going to define and measure high value care, I know what I’d say: listen to our voices, the voices of patients and families, the ultimate health care consumers. Listening to patient voices and providing care that is patient-centered can improve clinical outcomes, reduce “waste” in health care by reducing unnecessary testing, and increase the overall care experience for both patients and providers. Health care is centered around human interactions and relationships—it is critically important that those defining and measuring care truly hear the voices of the people the system is designed to help—patients and their families.