Common Table Update on Memphis Medical News

Common Table Update

By: Renee Frazier, executive director of the Healthy Memphis Common Table

HMCT Gives U.S. Policy Makers Feedback on Role of CVEs in Improving Healthcare

In February 2008, the Healthy Memphis Common Table (HMCT),was recognized as the first Chartered Value Exchange (CVE) in the U.S. by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

We are honored by this distinction, which acknowledges our years of building a diverse coalition of stakeholders to improve health in the Mid-South. Our many local partners work together to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of healthcare as well as the overall health of our citizens. A primary benefit of being a CVE includes connecting Mid-South stakeholders to their peers in a nationwide Learning Network sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
The Learning Network allows members to:

Share their experiences.
Identify promising practices.
Point out gaps where innovation is needed.
Raise issues for national consensus-building organizations.
Provide an on-the-ground perspective in the process of setting national priorities for improvement.

What is a Chartered Value Exchange (CVE)?

A CVE is a regional health improvement collaborative of consumers, patients, providers, businesses, payers, non-profit organizations, local governments, and health plans. Together they lead regional efforts to educate consumers and provide tools citizens can use to make decisions about quality and value in health care.

To learn more about Chartered Value Exchanges, please visit http://www.hhs.gov/valuedriven/communities/valueexchanges/exchanges.html

Recently, the CVE Sustainability Work Group representing the 24 current CVEs asked each CVE to provide regional feedback to federal policy makers. A Mid-South survey of 31 HMCT Community Partners was conducted in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 22, 2009. The survey assessed how community leaders in Memphis felt about healthcare reform and the current and potential roles of CVEs. Key findings of the survey included:

Healthcare payment reform is key to improve quality, increase efficiency, and increase accountability.
Financial incentives, such as those provided through Patient-Centered Medical Home payment models, are needed to reward high-quality primary care.
Reporting at the local level of quality, cost, access, patient satisfaction and insurance information using nationally standardized quality measures is strongly supported.
CVEs can help implement national programs to better provide high-quality care locally by disseminating data, establishing benchmarks and goals, providing education, and sharing best practices.
CVEs can help lead fair and high quality efforts to collect and report data about physicians, hospitals and health plans at the local level.

These are just some of the encouraging results, which demonstrate the important role CVEs can play in improving our nation's healthcare.

As we continue our work in the community, we are continually seeking ways to:

Keep stakeholders engaged in ongoing collaboration and serve as hubs for sharing information.
Use widely accepted performance standards to engage providers in improvement, help consumer decision-making through public reporting, and promote effective payment policies and consumer incentives.
Share promising practices and lessons learned and continually refine efforts.

For more information, or to join efforts to improve health care quality in Memphis, visit www.healthymemphis.org.