Resources for communities
While health care quality is a national problem, health care is delivered locally and fixing it requires local action. The resources below have been developed as part of the Foundation’s efforts to improve quality, and are being shared here to help local communities in their efforts to improve care.
These new and existing resources detail best practices and key learnings in the areas of consumer engagement, quality improvement, performance measurement and public reporting, payment and reimbursement, meaningful use and sustainability.
Continue to check back for additional resources to aid local communities in joining the nationwide discussion about how to deliver quality care to all Americans.
Consumer Engagement
- Consumer Decision Points in Accessing Comparative Health Care Information
- Talking about Health Care Payment Reform with U.S. Consumers
- Maximizing the Role of Consumer Leaders
- Finding Your Voice as a Consumer Leader
- Creating a Consumer Advisory Council
- Email Templates: Engaging Consumers
- Engaging Healthcare Consumers through Social Media: Maine Alliance Case Study
- Quality & Equality in U.S. Health Care: A Message Handbook
- Recruiting and Orienting Consumer Representatives
- Evidence That Consumers Are Skeptical about Evidence-Based Health Care
- Alliance Stakeholder Perspectives
- How to Get Consumer Feedback and Input
- Defining Consumer Representation
- Supporting Consumers in AF4Q Alliances through the Four Stages of Consumer Engagement
- Consumer Engagement Best Practices
- Consumer Engagement Survey
- Best Practices: Consumer Engagement in a Multi-Stakeholder Group
- Improving Health Care Quality: Why You Should Get Involved and How You Can Make a Difference
Performance Measurement and Public Reporting
- Lessons Learned in Public Reporting: Crossing the Cost and Efficiency Frontier
- Lessons Learned in Public Reporting: Deciding What to Report
- Lessons Learned in Public Reporting: Physician Buy-In
- Measuring Health Care Performance Now, Not Tomorrow
- LegalNotes: Volume 2, Issue 2 - The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act Regulations: Implications for Health Information Access and Exchange
- The ABCs of Measurement
- Summary of Alliance Use of Composite Measures
- Standardized Performance Measurement and Reporting in Emergency Departments (EDs)
- How to Display Comparative Information That People Can Understand and Use
- Language to Use in Public Reporting About Hospital Care
- Opportunities for Medicaid Inclusion in Performance Measurement and Public Reporting
- Successfully Reporting & Communicating Performance Measures: Lessons from Consumers
- How to Describe the Health and Community Context for Comparative Performance Reports: Sample Language for Five Health Topics
- Sample Site for Reporting Health Care Quality Data
- How to Report Results of the CAHPS Clinician & Group Survey
- Leverage Existing Efforts or Use a Centralized Approach?
- Communicating with Physicians about Performance Measurement
Quality Improvement
- Legal Notes: Volume 3 Issue 1: Disparities Reduction and Minority Health Improvement Under the ACA
- Provisions Related to Quality in the New Health Reform Law
- An Urgent Matter: Resources to Measure and Improve America's EDs
- Collecting Race, Ethnicity and Primary Language Data in Physician Practices: The Minnesota Community Measurement Experience
- Patient-Centered Medical Home Pilot in Cincinnati
- Hospital Quality Improvement Activities in Wisconsin
- Case for Patient Experience
- Patient Race, Ethnicity and Language (R/E/L) Data
- State Reform Dominates Boston Health Care Market Dynamics
- Inter-Alliance Sharing: Successes and Questions from Willamette Valley
- Communicating about Quality
- Patient Race, Ethnicity and Language (R/E/L) Data
- Educating and Motivating the Community to Reduce Disparities
- Ensuring Interpreter Qualifications and Standards Through Vendor Contracts
- Ensuring R/E/L Data Collection with the Use of a Post-Discharge Survey Tool
- Modifying the Registration System to Accurately and Efficiently Capture Patient Language Preference
- Modifying the Admission Process to Improve the Collection and Accuracy of REL Data Collection
- Improving Care Coordination by Streamlining Patient Referrals
- Take Charge For Better Health
- Releasing Medicare Claims Data to Support Quality Improvement Initiatives
- Improving Patient Flow and Reducing Emergency Department (ED) Crowding
- Advancing Primary Care: Assessing High-Volume, High-Value Practices
Meaningful Use
- An Overview of Final Regulations Implementing HITECH's Meaningful Use Provisions and their Implications for Regional Collaboratives
- Crosswalk of Quality Measures between AF4Q 3.0 Conditions/Procedures and the Meaningful Use of Health Information Technology
- LegalNotes: Volume 2, Issue 1 - HIT Adoption and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
- LegalNotes: Volume 2, Issue 3 - Meaningful Use & Medicaid – Challenges for States and Providers
Sustainability
- ARRA 2009: Opportunities for AF4Q Alliances to Partner with Medicaid Agencies
- Developing a Sustainable Business Model
- The Challenges of Capacity Building in the Aligning Forces for Quality Alliances
Payment and Reimbursement