HHS Unveils National Strategy for Health Care Quality Improvement

On Monday, HHS released the National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Health Care, which calls for a focus on patient-centered care, reducing costs and improving public health, HealthLeaders Media reports.

The federal health reform law called for the strategy to guide local, state and national efforts to improve health care.

The strategy aims to reduce administrative burdens and facilitate care collaboration for physicians and other health care providers (Commins, HealthLeaders Media, 3/22). HHS also calls for increased adoption of electronic health records to facilitate many of the projects included in the strategy (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 3/21).

HHS used evidence-based results and worked with federal and state agencies, local communities, clinicians, patients, businesses and payers to develop the strategy, which it said will evolve based on the needs of different communities.

HHS set several priorities, including:

• Reducing medical errors;
• Engaging patients and families as partners in care;
• Promoting prevention and effective treatments for leading causes of mortality, starting with cardiovascular disease;
• Collaborating with communities to promote best practices for healthy living; and
• Developing new delivery models to make health care affordable.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the strategy "sets America on a path toward a higher quality health care system so we stop doing things that don't work for patients and start doing more of the things that do work" (HealthLeaders Media, 3/22).