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KY Group: Collaborating Care Improves Health Outcomes

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Aug 29th, 2011

KY Group: Collaborating Care Improves Health Outcomes

Public News Service-KY

 

Developing a road map to guide the way to a healthier Kentucky is the goal of an ongoing collaborative effort among those who get care, give care, purchase care, and pay for care.

 

Kentucky Voices for Health, a coalition of over 250 groups and individuals, recently hosted a conference with that purpose in mind. Executive Director Jodi Mitchell says stakeholders share one common goal: the right treatment at the right time at the right place.

 

"All folks are looking for it, whether you're a consumer of health care, whether you're an employer who is purchasing health care, if you're the hospital."

 

The National Quality Forum (NQF) is a group of 400 organizations that brings together employers, consumer groups, state and community agencies, and physicians to look at priorities of coordinated care. During the conference, Diane Stollenwork, vice president of community alliances for the NQF, emphasized what's called the national quality strategy, which among other things provides a framework for communities to deal with changing payment and reporting requirements in Medicare and Medicaid.

 

"The National Quality Forum has been in place for about 10 years and it started really with the idea of, 'How do we hold the health care system accountable?' And, in order to do that, you need to measure, 'How are we doing?' You measure the performance."

 

Stollenwork says health care systems can be improved when communities glean successful models and approaches from each other, and the group works to connect those dots.

 

"So the effort is to say, 'How do we all start to work together to change things to make health care more affordable, to make health care safer, to help people be as healthy as possible, and to help communities be as healthy as possible?'"

 

Jodi Mitchell of Kentucky Voices for Health says last week's conference is part of a continuing effort to ensure improved patient safety, care coordination across different spectra, and greater reporting of the value of care.

 

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