HHS Adds Communities to Chartered Value Exchange Program

HHS has added 11 community programs to its list of Chartered Value Exchanges, nearly doubling the number of participants in the federal program. The CVE project is an integral part of HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt's goal of putting a greater emphasis on collaboration to improve quality measurement and transparency, which allow both patients and providers to make more informed health care decisions. Participants are recognized as local collaborations of consumers, providers and payers working together to provide health care based on recognized quality and price standards. By participating in the program, CVEs will receive access to Medicare data that can help them evaluate the quality of health care delivery in their communities.

The new CVEs are:

Aligning Forces for Quality, York, Pa.;
California CVE, San Francisco;
The Colorado CVE, Denver;
eHealth Connecticut, Middletown, Conn.;
Greater Louisville Value Exchange Partnership, Louisville, Ky.;
Health Improvement Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati and HealthBridge, Cincinnati;
Kansas City Quality Improvement Consortium, Kansas City, Mo.; 
Michigan Health Information Alliance, Mount Pleasant, Mich.;
Nevada Partnership for Value-driven Health Care, Las Vegas; 
Quality Health First program, managed by the Indiana Health Information Exchange, Indianapolis; and
Virginia Health Care Alliance, Glen Allen, Va.

Performance measurement results will be made available for the first group of 14 CVEs this week. The results for the 11 new CVEs are expected by the end of the month. More CVEs will be added at regular intervals with the goal of establishing a nationwide network