Hospital Quality Alliance Assignment: Discuss the Hospital Quality Alliance and its significance for hospitals.

In December 2002, the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) was launched by the organizations representing America's hospitals joined with consumer representatives, physician and nursing organizations, employers and payers, oversight organizations and government agencies. The HQA was introduced in order to incorporate a collaboration committed to making easily understood information regarding hospital performance readily available to the public encouraging quality improvement. "This collaboration includes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, and the Association of American Medical Colleges, and is supported by other organizations such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Quality Forum, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions, Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project, AFL-CIO, AARP, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, America's Health Insurance Plans, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, and the National Business Coalition on Health," (CMS, 2008).

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (Medica...

English: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service...

English: Source: http://www.chicagob2b.net/links/p...

According to the HQA's website, "The Hospital Quality Alliance facilitates continuous improvement in patient care through:•Implementing measures that portray the quality, cost and value of hospital care;•Developing and using measure reporting in the nation's hospitals; and•Sharing useful hospital performance information with the public."In order to meet the goals addressed above, the program needs to recognize a set of standardized and easy-to-understand hospital quality measures that would be used by all stakeholders in the healthcare system in order to improve quality of care and the ability of consumers to make informed healthcare choices. Measuring quality and publicly reporting the information is a powerful mechanism to drive improvements in our nation's health care system as well. Consumers need reliable, comparative data to help make informed decisions and health care providers need standardized performance information to support their improvement efforts. Enable to do this, "the HQA...