Alliance Blog

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of presenting at the National Employer Leadership Seminar, an invitation-only event sponsored by the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI).  The goal of the seminar was to share best practices in engaging purchasers to move the market to purchasing for value. There were many opportunities to talk about ...

A few weeks ago, Seattle and the nation were transfixed by a young man’s 24 hour standoff in a downtown Seattle tree. This is an opportunity for us to reflect on the state of mental health services in Washington, and figure out how we can do better. One study, which looked at prevalence of mental ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome Foster Pepper as the newest member of the Alliance. Foster Pepper For more than a century, Foster Pepper has been an integral part of the growth of the Pacific Northwest community. With more than 130 attorneys located in Seattle and Spokane, Washington, the firm has the deep industry knowledge, ...

Colorectal cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the United States and the second leading cause of death from cancer. It affects people in all racial and ethnic groups and is most often found in people age 50 and older. In Washington, colorectal cancer is the second most common cancer and the second leading ...

Since 2008, the Alliance has released an annual report highlighting health care quality and value at medical groups and hospitals in Washington state. Each year, the report demonstrates that the quality of care varies and that everyone has room to improve. At the Alliance, we also seek to continuously improve, and therefore try to adapt ...

The last few weeks have been exceptionally active for the Alliance. In February, we released our third report on the quality of patient experience in our state. Patient experience is an important component of health care value, which has become a top priority of both health care leaders and consumers. The survey, sent to 181,000 ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome both Express Scripts and CareATC as the newest members of the Alliance. Express Scripts Express Scripts works to make the use of prescription drugs safer and more affordable, managing more than one billion prescriptions each year for tens of millions of patients. Their clients include employers, health plans, unions ...

This blog post was re-printed with permission of the Institute of Translational Health Sciences. If you work in primary care, you’ve probably heard of Choosing Wisely. Established in 2012 by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation, Choosing Wisely is a national initiative to reduce “low-value care” that includes the overuse of tests and ...

Until recently, health care purchasing is the one area in which usual business practices, such as supply chain management, are not employed to manage cost and quality. Purchasers have often felt powerless to negotiate for better value or felt they have little choice but to accept what health care providers and health insurance plans offer. ...

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced a new agreement to standardize measures of health care quality. We applaud this announcement. The more organizations that can align around a common set of quality measures, the clearer the market signal will be regarding purchaser and payer expectations for performance on key indicators. The ...

I am pleased to announce that the Alliance will continue to contract with the Washington State Health Care Authority in 2016 for work related to the CMS/CMMI State Innovation Model grant. Under this contract, the Alliance will project manage all of the work related to implementation of the Washington State Common Measure Set on Health ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome Washington State University (WSU) Spokane as the newest purchaser member of the Alliance. Not only does WSU joining the Alliance help us extend our statewide reach and influence in eastern Washington, but they are also a nationally recognized research institution, bringing their expertise in health care to the Alliance. ...