Alliance Blog

This month, we’re excited to welcome Kittitas Valley Healthcare (KVH) to the Alliance. Situated in the heart of Washington, KVH provides care to Kittitas County and surrounding areas. KVH Hospital provides 24-hour emergency care and offers inpatient and outpatient hospital services. KVH also provides care through clinics and specialty services in both Upper and Lower ...

Washington Health Alliance plans to survey 140,000 patients! Patients are the best source of information about their experience in their primary care provider’s office. While ensuring a positive patient experience is an important goal in itself, research has shown that patient experience is related to other aspects of health care quality as well as to ...

Recently, ProPublica released its Surgeon Scorecard, which used five years of Medicare data to assess complication rates of common elective procedures. These lower risk procedures include knee and hip replacements, spinal fusions and gallbladder removals, among others. Using an algorithm, the group took into account risk factors such as a patient’s age and health conditions ...

The Alliance has enjoyed many successes since its start 10 years ago and you have been a vital part of these efforts. Our hard work continues, and here are a few exciting initiatives that will continue to position the Alliance as a catalyst for health care transformation in our state. Since 2008, the Community Checkup ...

No one likes a failing grade. But in the 2015 Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR) – Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3) Report Card on State Price Transparency Laws, Washington didn’t fare too well. In fact, we got an F. Nearly all states did, and have for the three years the report has been issued, ...

We’re excited to welcome our newest member, Confluence Health, to the Alliance. Founded in July, 2013, Confluence Health is an affiliation between Central Washington Hospital and Wenatchee Valley Medical Center. With over 350 physicians and mid-level practitioners, they provide primary care to central Washington residents and also draw patients from throughout the region for specialty care. Confluence Health ...

Have you ever been in a store, where you found what you were looking for – quickly even – but your experience was so bad you vowed never to go back again? The same is true in health care, though the stakes are so much higher. It’s not just about getting care quickly. Your experience ...

We are pleased to announce that the Alliance has been selected by the Washington State Health Care Authority to lead implementation of the Washington State Common Measure Set for Health Care Quality and Cost, and that the Alliance’s Community Checkup website will host the publicly available results going forward. The starter set of more than ...

This month, we’re excited to welcome two new members to the Alliance: MPIRICA Health Analytics and the City of Kirkland. MPIRICA is an up-and-coming health analytics firm and we are excited to have them join the conversation. The City of Kirkland joins our other public purchaser members who bring the perspective of a public purchasing ...

In a recent New Yorker article, Atul Gawande explores the ongoing crisis of unnecessary care in the United States, discussing the issues with doctors, patients and those who study the issue from coast to coast. What it all comes down to is this: the United States health care system is facing an epidemic of overdiagnosis, ...

Coalition for Health Care Cost Transparency applauds Governor Jay Inslee and state legislators for bi-partisan effort Olympia, May 14, 2015—At a ceremony in his office today, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed legislation to establish a fully functional All-Payer Claims Database (APCD), which will give consumers, providers and employers important new information to understand the quality ...

Last week, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) released the results of a poll conducted in March that found three-quarters of emergency physicians have seen an increase in emergency room (ER) patient visits since early 2014, when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) took effect. The poll mirrors what had been anticipated by ACEP, as ...