Purpose:
As medicine
and technology rapidly advance, research on quality of care reveals
a system that frequently falls short in translating knowledge into
practice and applying new technology appropriately. ACHI cooperates
with strategic partners to study the gap between the care that
patients should receive and the care that is actually delivered in
the state.
State Employee
Health Care Quality and Health Disparities
The primary goal of the State
and Public School Employee Life and Health Insurance plan is to
deliver high quality, appropriate care, in a timely way to
enrollees.
Substantive efforts have been undertaken by individual clinicians, hospitals, and the
state's quality improvement organization -
Arkansas
Foundation for Medical Care. Arkansans have enjoyed
a narrowing gap between what we know should happen and what does
happen in clinical settings across the state. However, we
consistently observe differences between what the Arkansas health
care system delivers and what nationally achieved benchmarks have
demonstrated are attainable.
Working with the Employee Benefit Division's (EBD)
Quality of Care
Subcommittee, ACHI has developed a method of evaluating the quality
of care received by state and public school employees enrolled in
the life and health insurance plan.
Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration
Using the
power of technology to manage and improve health care quality is
on the horizon. Paper patient files will become electronic
health records capable of following patients from one medical
service to the next and from provider to payer.
The Health
Information Security & Privacy Collaboration (HISPC) project is a
nationally driven step toward development of electronic health
information exchange, funded by grants generated through the
National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices and the
Federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. As
recipient for the Arkansas grant, ACHI worked in partnership with
the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care and stakeholders throughout
the state, assessing current rules and regulations, identifying
legal safeguards and barriers, developing a plan for overcoming
those barriers, and making national and state recommendations.
Click here for more
information.
RESOURCES
Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality 2006 State
Snapshots
The State Snapshots provide state-specific
health care quality information including
strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for
improvement. The goal is to help state
officials and their public- and
private-sector partners better understand
health care quality and disparities in their
State.
http://statesnapshots.ahrq.gov/statesnapshots/index.jsp
Commonwealth Fund Health System Report Card
Developed to follow the
National
Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance,
published
in 2006, the State Scorecard
assesses
state variation across key dimensions of
health system performance: access, quality,
avoidable hospital use and costs, equity,
and healthy lives.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=494551
ACHI News Release
Arkansas
Foundation for Medical Care
The Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care (AFMC)
is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to the
clinical evaluation and improvement of
health care in Arkansas.
http://www.afmc.org/HTML/publications/annual_report.aspx
http://www.afmc.org/HTML/programs/statisticaldata/medicaid/hedis06/index.aspx
RELATED LEGISLATION
Act 136 of 2007, an Act to define
the accrediting organization for hospitals
Act 845 of 2007, the hospital
infection disclosure Act of 2007
Act 1434 of 2005, An Act to Preserve the Confidentiality of
Health Data in Arkansas
Act 1937 of 2005, An Act to Authorize the State and Public
School Life and Health Insurance Board to obtain quality-of care
information from networks, hospitals, and clinical providers to
inform plan design, plan management, and consumer decisions
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