Alliance Blog

National and regional employers, health care providers, and other health care leaders convened in Seattle yesterday for a National Employer Summit addressing “The Purchaser’s Role in Driving Affordability.” Organized by the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement, with the Washington Health Alliance serving as local host, the Summit provided a forum for employers to discuss innovative ...

Seattle, WA —Employers, healthcare providers, and other industry leaders today gathered in Seattle to discuss the roles they can play in reining in the rising cost of U.S. healthcare. Experts from Boeing, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GE healthymagination, and leaders of Regional Health Improvement Collaboratives (RHICs) agreed that the healthcare industry cannot fix ...

Last Thursday, Seattle Business magazine hosted a gala at Bell Harbor International Conference Center for their 2018 Leaders in Health Care Awards. It was an exciting and inspiring evening, and I was reminded that we are truly fortunate to be in a region with such outstanding health care leaders. One of those leaders, Dr. Peter ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome eviCore and Collective Medical as the newest members of the Alliance.   About eviCore Healthcare eviCore is a company committed to advancing healthcare management through intelligent care – and enabling better outcomes for patients, providers, and plans. It is an evidence-based approach that leverages exceptional capabilities, powerful analytics, and acute ...

Patients consider provider communication more important than other elements of patient experience 35% of males and 21% of females reported binge drinking at least some of the time Nearly three-quarters of patients said they did not get help finding out the cost of a recommended health care treatment or medication beforehand SEATTLE, Feb. 26, 2018 ...

Last week the Alliance released our new report on health care waste in Washington, “First, Do No Harm,” and the response has been outstanding. The report has been featured in dozens of news stories, both nationally and locally, including NPR and ProPublica, Modern Healthcare, MyNorthwest/KIRO, the Tacoma News Tribune, and the Spokesman-Review. I would also ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome Peninsula Community Health Services  as the newest member of the Alliance. About Peninsula Community Health Services Peninsula Community Health Services (PCHS) is a community based nonprofit organization dedicated to providing accessible, affordable, compassionate, quality health and wellness services for their communities. PCHS was founded in 1987 as a community clinic in downtown Bremerton and ...

In one year, an estimated $282 million was spent on “wasteful” health care for 622,000 Washington patients Washington becomes just the third state in the nation to use a new tool called the MedInsight Health Waste Calculator to measure health care waste and put a price tag on overuse SEATTLE, Feb. 1, 2018 – In ...

Health care waste – the overuse of low-value services – introduces the unnecessary risk of adverse physical and financial harm for patients, drives up costs for purchasers and insurers, and strains the system. This is a serious problem in health care. However, by quantifying low-value care in the system, we can establish a baseline, raise ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome Amgen and Swenson Healthcare as the newest members of the Alliance.   About Amgen Amgen is one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies. They are a values-based company, deeply rooted in science and innovation to transform new ideas and discoveries into medicines for patients with serious illnesses. They dedicate ...

A new report from the United Health Foundation has ranked Washington No. 9 on a list of healthiest states in the nation. The report, America’s Health Rankings, evaluated 35 core measures in five model categories: Behaviors, community and environmental conditions, policies, clinical care, and outcomes data. Washington was ranked No. 7 last year, but fell ...

Last week was an exciting one for the Alliance, as we released the eleventh version of the Community Checkup report. The report includes the third results for the Washington State Common Measure Set for Health Care Quality and Cost, a set of 56 measures used to track progress in our state and a key component ...