The Regional Quality Improvement (RQI) initiative is a Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to test Medicaid's capacity to promote system-wide improvements in chronic care delivery.
Arkansas is one of several states and regions that will develop and implement a series of quality strategies to support a comprehensive, integrated public/private approach to regional healthcare improvement. Along with Medicaid, Arkansas engaged other health care stakeholders, such as BlueCross BlueShield, QualChoice, State Employees Benefit Division, Employers’ Health Coalition, medical associations and professionals, and industry leaders.
There are two main goals of the Arkansas RQI initiative:
- To identify common metrics for clinical performance measures to be used by all payers in the state, to create a uniform data set by which we can understand health care delivery and improve its effectiveness. This task is being guided by the Quality Measure Steering Committee.
- To develop a business plan for the orderly creation of a regional organization and a strategic plan to create and support health information exchange. This task is under the direction of the HIE Steering Committee.
The integration of an HIT infrastructure in Arkansas will allow for continued growth by healthcare professionals and medical facilities. This will present new opportunities and challenges to provide valuable point of care patient information and to better understand the effectiveness of healthcare delivery.
AFMC is pleased to serve as a coordinator of this two-year (7/1/2006-6/30/2008) funded initiative and to facilitate external interaction of experts in the field of HIE to assist Arkansas in this intensive endeavor.
For more information:
Contact rqi@afmc.org
