HHS releases National Quality Strategy annual progress report
A new report released by the Department of Health and Human Services offers up details on the latest implementation activities by the private and public sectors to meet the goals of the National Strategy for Quality Improvement (National Quality Strategy).
Initially published in 2011, the National Quality Strategy identifies and prioritizes quality improvement efforts to measure the collective success of federal, state and private sector healthcare stakeholders in improving the quality of healthcare. The July 10 report is the second annual update.
The strategy looks at six priorities to achieve better care, healthier communities and affordable care: (1) Making care safer by reducing harm caused in the delivery of care; (2) Ensuring that each person and family is engaged as partners in their care; (3) Promoting effective communication and coordination of care; (4) Promoting the most effective practices for the leading causes of mortality (5); Working with communities to promote best practices to enable healthy living; and (6) Making quality care more affordable for individuals, families, employers and governments by establishing new healthcare delivery models.
The 2013 Annual Progress Report to Congress on the National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Health Care features the following information:
- Efforts to identify and adopt effective unified performance measures that meet the reporting requirements of federal, state, private sector and healthcare provider programs. Such efforts include the work of the Measures Application Partnership, composed of over 60 government and private-sector organizations, and the Buying Value initiative, a group of 19 private healthcare purchasers and purchasers’ representatives.
- Quality improvement in the six priority areas; this year’s report describes public and private sector efforts such as the Irving, Texas-based VHA cooperative of non-profit hospitals that reduced all-payer, all-cause readmissions by 17.6 percent in just 12 months across 192 hospitals.
- Progress in the development of organizational infrastructure at the community level. The 62 Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers work with more than 31,000 medical practices and 140,000 providers, nearly 45 percent of U.S. primary care providers, to adopt and meaningfully use EHRs.