Alliance Blog

In the introduction to our 2018 Community Checkup – just released this week – we use the metaphor of a journey to describe our health care improvement efforts in Washington state. Along with our health care partners and stakeholders, we have been on this journey for more than two decades. And like kids in the ...

Our second “First, Do No Harm: Calculating Health Care Waste in Washington State” is out. This year’s report looks at 48 measures of common medical treatments, tests and procedures using the MedInsight Health Waste Calculator from Milliman.  The report found that an estimated $341 million was spent on unnecessary health care in Washington state during a one-year period ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome Airrosti as the newest member of the Alliance. About Airrosti Airrosti providers are singularly focused on getting results for their patients, while providing the highest level of quality care. Airrosti focuses on accurately diagnosing the root cause of pain, then fully resolving that pain as quickly as possible. Their ...

This month’s letter is written by Deputy Director Susie Dade on a timely topic, the impact of purchasers on value-based purchasing strategies – one of her many areas of expertise. Earlier this year, PricewaterhouseCoopers released their 2018 “Health and Well-being Touchstone Survey Results.”  This survey includes data from over 900 participating employers in 37 industries ...

  “The Alliance has been an incredible advocate for quality and value in healthcare and has taken on very impressive projects to increase transparency and arm our patients, employers and health care providers across our state with information that they can use to provide patients care. Your work shows exactly why transparency is such an ...

On a hot, smoky, not-so-transparent day in Seattle last month, I received an email from a staff member of the US Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee inquiring about my interest to testify before a bipartisan hearing on the topic of reducing health care costs through transparency. We sent a copy of our ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome Stanson Health as the newest member of the Alliance. About Stanson Health Stanson Health’s products are designed to reduce low-value and unnecessary care. They leverage real-time alerts and relevant analytics to guide and influence physician’s decisions. Their primary mission is to measurably improve the quality and safety of patient ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome Harmony Biosciences, LLC as the newest member of the Alliance. About Harmony Biosciences, LLC Harmony Biosciences is an innovative biopharmaceutical company dedicated to identifying, developing, and commercializing novel treatment options for patients with rare diseases. With an emphasis on central nervous system disorders, their goal is to push the ...

“Americans aren’t buying more health care overall than other countries. But what they are buying is increasingly expensive.” I’m sure this quote from the recent Wall Street Journal article “Why Americans Spend So Much on Health Care” comes as no shock to any of you. Health care spending in our country is skyrocketing, currently accounting ...

In May, the Alliance released “Hospital Value in Washington State” – the first report in the state and one of the few nationally – that combines scores on hospital quality, patient experience and cost. Since its release, we have received many positive comments and some media attention centered on the report’s findings that higher cost ...

Nancy Guinto is on a well-deserved vacation, so this month’s letter is from the Alliance’s deputy director, Susie Dade. Just a couple of states away, Covered California – the state’s health insurance marketplace under the Affordable Care Act – announced it will exclude hospitals from being “in-network” if the hospitals haven’t met targets for safety ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome Oregon Health Leadership Council as the newest members of the Alliance. About Oregon Health Leadership Council The Oregon Health Leadership Council (formerly the Health Leadership Task Force) or OHLC is a collaborative organization working to develop practical solutions that reduce the rate of increase in health care costs and premiums so ...