Two Health Care Quality Alliances Team Up

Two key health care quality alliances -- the AQA alliance and the Hospital Quality Alliance, or HQA -- have joined forces to form a new national Quality Alliance Steering Committee.

The committee is charged with coordinating efforts to promote three pressing issues in the U.S. health care system: quality measures, transparency and improved health care.

The AQA is a coalition of 135 physician organizations, consumers, employers and health plan representatives that provides information about the quality of care physicians provide. HQA -- made up of hospitals, nurses, physician organizations and others -- shares information on the quality of health care provided in hospitals.

Through the joint efforts of these two groups, "Americans will have helpful information on health care available through the Internet," said a July 21 press release (MS Word file: 2 pages / 68.5 KB. More information on downloading files.) on the steering committee's formation.

According to the press release, a key responsibility of the steering committee will be to explore options to expand the "scope, speed and adoption" of the work of the AQA and HQA.

This is an "important step toward the critical goals of enabling consumers to make more informed health care decisions and supporting improvements in the quality and cost of health care in the United States," said CMS Administrator Mark McClellan, M.D., Ph.D., in the press release.

Members of the steering committee include physicians, consumers, hospitals and employers. Some organizations represented on the committee are the Association of American Medical Colleges, America's Health Insurance Plans, AMA, American College of Physicians and American Hospital Association.

"This is an important collaborative effort," said Academy EVP Douglas Henley, M.D., adding that the absence of an AAFP representative on the committee is not a concern. "Due to the limited number of seats on the committee, John Tooker, EVP of the American College of Physicians, agreed to pull double duty," said Henley. "He will represent the interests of family medicine, internal medicine and all ambulatory-care physicians."

In similar fashion, Henley represents all physicians on a national level through his service on the American Health Information Community, a public-private commission appointed by HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt last fall to bring U.S. health care into the age of electronics.