The quality coalition is a group of healthcare providers which include Gundersen Lutheran and ThedaCare. They have worked hard to make sure language was included in the healthcare bill that allows for value to be defined and rewarded.
We have known for years that significant geographic disparity exists in healthcare payment. In fact, the Dartmouth Atlas tell us that in the markets that deliver the best quality and lowest cost, the payments are the lowest. Medicare pays better for worse quality more expensive care. This is certainly one reason that U.S. healthcare costs are skyrocketing.
What the Secretary of HHS has agreed to as evidenced by the following letter to the quality coalition, is to charge the Institute of Medicine with studying the issue of defining healthcare value and reporting the findings to HHS. The IOM should consider working with the Healthcare Value Leaders Network to create the measures for value. The network has received one grant from the RWJ Foundation and has submitted grant proposals to the Commonwealth Fund and will be submitting a AHRQ grant shortly on the subject. With our Network of now 30 organizations implementing whole system transformations using lean, there is a robust environment to study both the metrics for value and also the actual delivery of better value to the patient.
The sooner we get to actual value measures, the sooner we get to payment approaches that work to reduce cost and improve quality in healthcare delivery.
2010-03-20 Sec Sebelius Letter to Quality Care Coalition Letter
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