Collaboration and Partnership

To be effective, the Hospital Quality Initiative must truly become a collaborative effort with hospitals and their associations, physicians, other clinicians, federal and state agencies, QIOs, independent health-care quality organizations, private purchasers, accreditors, and consumer advocates. The initiative is designed to improve communication among all parties to positively impact quality of care. By collaborating to expand our knowledge and resources, we can achieve greater and immediate improvements in the quality of hospital care.

There are a number of examples of cooperative effort in the components of the CMS Hospital Quality Initiative. The Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU) initiative is intended to equip consumers with quality of care information to make more informed decisions about their health care, while encouraging hospitals and clinicians to improve the quality of inpatient care provided to all patients. In addition, CMS and the Connecticut Department of Public Health have developed a special partnership designed to align Connecticut hospital public reporting with the CMS and the national voluntary reporting initiatives