Alliance Blog

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 ...

For five years, The Leapfrog Group – a national nonprofit organization comprised of large private and public healthcare purchasers – has issued the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, reporting on errors, accidents and infections in hospitals across the U.S. Last week, they released their spring 2017 report, which includes grades of 46 hospitals in Washington state. ...

Today we celebrate Choosing Wisely’s 5th anniversary! The Alliance is proud to be a grantee of this exciting and important campaign and to play a part in helping to advance its goals in Washington state. Choosing Wisely® is a national initiative of the ABIM Foundation, in partnership with Consumer Reports, that is helping physicians and ...

March was a turbulent month for the health care industry as the American Health Care Act (ACHA) was introduced and then withdrawn from Congress. Discussion of the bill dominated the news, and there are rumblings that a second attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may be made soon. No matter where you stand ...

A recent study from Brookings is garnering national headlines for showing that “deaths of despair” are surging across the U.S. These deaths are caused by alcoholism, suicide, and drug overdoses, including from the opioid epidemic, and have increased dramatically over the last 15 years. While the causes of these deaths are complex and manifold, we ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome Loft9 Consulting, Island Hospital, Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. and McKinsey & Company as the newest members of the Alliance. About Loft9 Consulting Loft9’s mission is to be sought out as the management consulting firm that consistently delivers elevated outcomes and experiences through positive energy, collaborative spirit, and passion for client ...

The Commonwealth Fund has released their 2017 Scorecard on State Health System Performance, and Washington is ranked #10 overall, an increase of six spots from its baseline rank. We rank particularly well in Avoidable Hospital Use & Cost (#5), Healthy Lives (#9) and Equity (#10), but scored lower in Access & Affordability (#18) and Prevention ...

Data is a foundational element in transforming the health care system, which is why the Community Checkup has played such an important role in our work since its first release in 2008. We know that data by itself is insufficient to move the market. Data must be translated into information to drive action and outcomes ...