The Department of Health and Human Services is launching a nationwide network of local and regional collaboratives to provide members of the public with information about the quality and cost of health care in their areas.
Saying such information is best gathered locally where “providers and purchasers can meet eye to eye,” HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt unveiled a plan that calls for his department to charter “value exchanges,” or qualified non-profit organizations that may include representatives of health plans, employers, doctors, nurses, hospitals, consumers and other stakeholders.
The exchanges would use nationally recognized standards of care as to assess the performance of local health care providers. They would provide the public with performance scores and information about the cost of specific kinds of care.
When starting up, the exchanges would be recognized by HHS as “community leaders.” The organizations would be chartered as value exchanges after they demonstrated their capacity to do the information-gathering and measuring.
“Existing local and regional collaboratives that have developed independently in recent years would be expected to form the initial core of value exchanges receiving HHS charters,” according to an HHS announcement.
An HHS Web site lists five organizations the department has recognized as community leaders: the Puget Sound Health Alliance; the Greater Detroit Area Health Council; the Health Action Council of Northeastern Ohio; the Center for Health Transformation, and the Memphis Business Group on Health.
The Center for Health Transformation is a for-profit business founded by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and headquartered in Washington, D.C. Large health care companies and other corporations provide much of its support. The center advocates health care reforms, including price and quality transparency, and provides consulting services.
The HHS value exchanges are part of Leavitt’s Value-Driven Health Care Initiative, which includes interoperable health information technology among its strategies.
The national network of value exchanges envisioned in the plan would include a learning network where local collaboratives could share knowledge about quality assessment.
HHS’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality will administer the new program.
"The goal is to achieve both national coordination in developing standards and local control in applying them," Leavitt said. "The Value-Driven Health Care Initiative is aiming at both of these goals -- and at the same time, aiming to keep control in the private and professional sectors. The federal government can help organize -- but providers, purchasers and consumers themselves must be in charge and make the system work."
Government Health IT presents Liesa Jo Jenkins, executive director of CareSpark, in this recent eSeminar, where she shared her experiences and insight into building a health information exchange that enhances community health, rewards regional collaboration and drives economic progress.
