Community Quality Efforts Expand as Seattle Health Plan Products Evolve

Originally published by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) as a Community Report, 2005.

Seattle's Quality Initiatives Expand as Health Plan Products Evolve

HSC researchers visited Seattle as part of the Community Tracking Study and found an expanding set of community-level quality improvement efforts alongside evolving health plan product designs. Seattle had long been a leader in collaborative quality improvement, with multi-stakeholder coalitions bringing together providers, health plans, employers, and consumer groups to develop shared quality measurement and reporting frameworks. These efforts were gaining momentum and expanding in scope.

At the same time, the health plan market was evolving as insurers developed new product designs that gave consumers more financial responsibility and more information about the cost and quality of care. The combination of community quality initiatives and market-driven product innovation positioned Seattle as a potential model for how local health care markets could pursue both quality improvement and cost management simultaneously. The presence of major integrated delivery systems, including Group Health Cooperative and Virginia Mason Medical Center, provided examples of organizations that were linking quality improvement to practice redesign in ways that could serve as templates for other communities.

Sources and Further Reading

Center for Studying Health System Change, "Community Quality Efforts Expand as Seattle Health Plan Products Evolve," Community Report, Community Tracking Study (2005).