Wisconsin Collaborative for Quality Healthcare

Aligning Forces for Quality


Aligning Forces for Quality is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's signature effort to lift the overall quality of health care, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and provide models for national reform. WCHQ is leading the Aligning Forces for Quality initiative in Wisconsin.

In each of the 17 Aligning Forces for Quality communities, teams of stakeholders representing the people who get care, give care, and pay for care are working to rebuild health systems so they work better for everyone. Aligning Forces for Quality is the largest effort of its kind ever undertaken by a U.S. philanthropic organization. The program seeks to:

  • Help providers improve their own ability to deliver quality care,
  • Help providers measure and publicly report their performance, and
  • Help consumers understand their role in recognizing and demanding high-quality care.

The Wisconsin-based Aligning Forces for Quality leadership team has identified strategies to develop measures that allow health care providers, purchasers, and consumers to assess health care performance and to support quality improvement initiatives in medical groups and hospitals. The leadership team is working to help consumers become more engaged in their health care and partner with their doctors, create provider buy-in and culture change to support active consumers, and create program and structural changes for practice redesign. The leadership team is also pursuing objectives to strengthen the role of nurse leaders, and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in care.

Recent Successes in Wisconsin:

Quality Improvement

  • Hosted a learning session focused on aligning quality efforts in primary care settings to support doctors and improvement teams.
  • Produced a series of reports on the current state of quality improvement practices in Wisconsin hospitals. The first two reports reveal the level of knowledge and experience of hospital-based quality improvement managers and staff nurses, while the third report identifies strategies for engaging clinical staff in improvement and skills training.
  • Convened an advisory team to identify strategies for engaging hospital-based nurse leaders.

Consumer Engagement

  • Designed a two-track pilot of the Ask Me 3 health literacy program to improve communication between patients and health care professionals.
  • Developed a quality health care overview for consumers in English and Spanish.

Performance Measurement and Public Reporting

  • Expanded our public reporting to include osteoporosis, tobacco screenings, and an all-or-none diabetes measure.
  • Hosted an efficiency symposium to explore the emerging science of measuring physician efficiency and lay the groundwork for constructing value-focused performance measurements.
  • Convened a roundtable discussion with WCHQ member organizations and strategic partners on the development of a diabetes value metric.