Alliance Blog

This month, we’re excited to welcome Columbia Valley Community Health, Spark Therapeutics and Trutina Financial as the newest members of the Alliance.   About Columbia Valley Community Health Columbia Valley Community Health improves the health of our communities by providing leading-edge, whole person care for everyone. They are a dynamic and progressive community health center ...

A new study from the American Cancer Society published in JAMA shows that rates of colorectal cancer (CRC) are rising among younger adults, ages 20-54. Current recommendations do not advise CRC screening until age 50 (unless other risk factors or symptoms are present), so many cases in younger adults are not being identified until the ...

I am pleased to announce that last week the Alliance released a new members-only report on Hospital Value. The report looks at the three components of value in health care: quality, patient experience and cost. The Alliance ranks 48 hospitals based on the results for eight mortality measures and five patient safety measures using three ...

Gov. Jay Inslee has announced the appointment of Lou McDermott as interim director of the Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA), replacing Dorothy Frost Teeter. The Alliance congratulates McDermott on his appointment and looks forward to a continued close partnership with the HCA. Healthier Washington, an initiative of the HCA, shares many of the same ...

The Washington Health Alliance’s All-Alliance meeting on June 20 brought together representatives from leading health care purchasers, providers, and plans from across the state for informative and thought-provoking presentations and discussion. Members heard about upcoming reports from the Alliance, got an overview of the Practice Transformation Hub from Selena Bolotin of Qualis Health, and learned ...

On Monday, June 26, Dr. Emily Transue of the Washington State Health Care Authority represented Healthier Washington and the Alliance on New Day Northwest for a segment on ensuring quality health care. Dr. Transue highlighted the Own Your Health website and the many resources it makes available to consumers. Video of the segment is available ...

Since the Alliance’s founding in 2004, we have been fortunate to partner with members and supporters across the state of Washington who are committed to improving the health care system through collaboration and innovation. One of our longest-standing supporters has been Board member Dorothy Teeter, who has provided valuable counsel to the Alliance throughout its ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome Quest Diagnostics as the newest member of the Alliance. About Quest Diagnostics Quest Diagnostics empowers people to take action to improve health outcomes.  Derived from the world’s largest database of clinical lab results, their diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors and improve ...

At the Alliance, we define high-value health care as high quality and good patient experience at a fair price. Over the past eleven years, and with the help and support of our valued members, the Alliance has developed a well-established reputation for public reporting of objective, trustworthy quality and patient experience results. Building upon this ...

In 2014 Washington became one of the first states to agree upon a common measure set for health care quality and cost. The impetus was to align measurement efforts across a wide variety of organizations, send a common message about performance accountability and create the basis for purchasing health care based on better value, i.e., ...

The Alliance’s Director of Communication and Development, John Gallagher, recently hosted a webinar demonstrating some of the many features of the Community Checkup website. Topics covered include how to compare scores, view scores by topic, how to interpret the results, and much more. The Community Checkup is a resource for unbiased, trustworthy data and analysis ...

A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made headlines for finding that more than 20 percent of adults in the U.S. are infected with cancer-causing human papillomavirus (HPV). And with an HPV-associated cancer rate of 11.29 per 100,000 people, Washington has the highest rate of any state in the WWAMI ...