Helping Hospitals Transform Care

Imagine a health care system where every person receives the right care every time, and where health care practitioners and providers have the tools and resources to deliver that care.  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and AQAF are dedicated to realizing this vision.

AQAF, Alabama’s Quality Improvement Organization, partners with hospitals throughout the state to improve system level changes through four strategies identified by CMS:

• Clinical performance measurement and reporting
• Process improvement
• Systems improvement, and
• Transform organizational culture

Quality measures, measures based on scientific evidence, are used to assess how well a hospital provides care to its patients.  A quality measure converts medical information from a patient records into a rate or percentage that allows hospitals to evaluate their performance.  More information on hospital quality measures can be found by accessing the link below.

Hospital Compare, created by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services (CMS) and the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA), is a national
consumer website that features clinical measures on hospital quality of care in the areas of heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical infections.  Quality information can be viewed at www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov or www.medicare.gov . New information will be added in accordance to CMS public reporting timeline.

As the authority on healthcare quality improvement in Alabama, AQAF’s Hospital Services Team is a partner of choice for hospital professionals.  The Hospital Services Team is committed to working with hospital leadership and quality improvement staff to use a variety of techniques and strategies to

• ensure the right care for every patient every time
• evaluate the safety of every patient, and
• implement programs designed to measurably improve health care quality outcomes. 

Additionally, at AQAF, Hospital Services recognizes that quality improvement involves knowing where you are, where you want to be and taking the necessary steps to get there.  The Hospital Services Team can help you every step of the way – from defining the problem to determining what to measure, to collecting and analyzing information, to recommending intervention strategies and making improvements and evaluating success.