Broad Coalition Offers Plan to Improve Health Care Quality and Affordability

Recommendations call for better measurement and transparency as foundation for
improvement and reform

WASHINGTON, March 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Stand for Quality, a diverse
coalition of more than 165 organizations from across the health care spectrum,
today announced a framework to improve the quality and affordability of health
care for all patients through a public-private partnership described in six
key recommendations.

The six recommendations are:
1. Set national priorities and provide coordination for quality
improvement;
2. Endorse and maintain nationally standardized measures;
3. Develop measures to fill gaps in priority areas;
4. Ensure that providers and other stakeholders have a role in developing
policies on use of measures;
5. Collect, analyze, and make performance information available and
actionable;
6. Support a sustainable infrastructure for quality improvement.

Stand for Quality's recommendations are the product of a partnership among
patient and consumer groups; employers and public purchasers; representatives
of physicians, nurses and other clinicians; health plans; hospitals; and more.
The multistakeholder group came together with the shared belief that
improvements in access, quality, and affordability are inextricably linked.

"The wide array of organizations endorsing Stand for Quality's recommendations
illustrate the essential role quality improvement must play in health care
reform," said Gerald Shea, Assistant to the President for Governmental affairs
at the AFL-CIO. "Stand for Quality provides structure around a quality
enterprise that has grown organically and makes it accountable in a new
system."

"Consumers and patients want affordable, high quality care that is safe,
efficient, and responsive to their needs," said John Rother, Executive Vice
President of Policy and Strategy for AARP. "Health care reform must include
ways to better assess quality, as well as how to translate results into useful
information that will help practitioners, patients, and policymakers make
informed decisions. These recommendations recognize the continuum of measuring
and improving quality and affordability."

The six recommendations representing a path to safe, efficient,
patient-centered health care are outlined in Stand for Quality's Building a
Foundation for High Quality, Affordable Health Care: Linking Performance
Measurement to Health Reform. The recommendations build on existing
improvement efforts and aim to harness the energies of the public and private
sectors to strengthen health care quality - ensuring reform not only expands
coverage, but improves the care patients receive.

"These recommendations are anchored in the reality that quality is about what
happens between a clinician and a patient," said John Tooker, Chief Executive
Officer of the American College of Physicians. "We support this effort because
it is critical to giving doctors the tools they want and need to improve
care."

To support and catalyze these efforts, Stand for Quality identifies distinct
roles for the public and private sectors to work in partnership to measure
quality and use those results to drive continuous improvement. Measurement and
reporting of health care services are crucial to achieving the essential goals
of reform - quality, affordability, and access for all.

Stand for Quality recognizes that standardized measures and public reporting
create a strong foundation to share what works and inform care delivery that
is patient-centered, safe, and effective. "Our recommendations build on the
successes of work already underway to create an integrated national
infrastructure that will put into the hands of providers of care, purchasers
of care, and consumers of care information to inform their decisions," said
Richard Umbdenstock, President and Chief Executive Officer of the American
Hospital Association.

The full list of the more than 165 supporting organizations of Stand for
Quality is available at: www.standforquality.org.

SOURCE Stand for Quality

Dan Rafter, NQF, +1-202-783-1300, ext. 175, drafter@qualityforum.org, for
Stand for Quality