The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) today announced the selection of 15 hospitals to participate in two new quality improvement programs as part of its ambitious Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) initiative. AF4Q is the Foundation’s signature program to lift the overall quality of health care in targeted communities, reduce racial and ethnic disparities and provide models for real reform. Over several years and through a series of intensive communitywide efforts, the communities are serving as "learning laboratories" for improving the quality of care being delivered in a given region.

The Aligning Forces for Quality: Language Quality Improvement Collaborative (Language QI Collaborative) will identify and test strategies for hospitals to provide timely, effective language services to patients with limited English proficiency.

The Aligning Forces for Quality: Equity Quality Improvement Collaborative (Equity QI Collaborative) will identify and address racial and ethnic disparities in cardiac care, and test real-world solutions.

“Although the quality of health care is poor for many Americans, we know that some patients from specific racial and ethnic backgrounds continue to experience even lower-quality health care,” said Anne F. Weiss, M.P.P., team director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “To improve health care across America, it’s imperative that we close the gaps in care for minority patients. These two collaboratives address disparities head-on—and they do it at the local level, because while gaps in quality are a national problem, addressing them must happen locally, through hard work in real communities.”

The Equity QI Collaborative is based on the RWJF Expecting Success: Excellence in Cardiac Care legacy program. In just two years, hospitals participating in that pilot reported an average 37 percent increase in patients receiving all the recommended care for heart failure.

The Language QI Collaborative is based on the Foundation’s Speaking Together: National Language Services Network legacy program. Over the course of 18 months, the percentage of patients who received needed language services increased by nearly 20 percentage points at hospitals participating in the pilot.

Hospitals selected to participate in the collaboratives:

Equity QI Collaborative Participants:

Kansas City, Mo.

Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City
Truman Medical Center Hospital Hill

Memphis, Tenn.

Methodist North Hospital

Minnesota

Regions Hospital

West Michigan

Mercy Health Partners, Mercy Campus

Western New York

Erie County Medical Center Corporation

Language QI Collaborative Participants:

Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Detroit, Mich.

Beaumont Hospitals
Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center
St. Joseph Mercy Oakland

Humboldt County, Calif.

St. Joseph Hospital

Maine

Central Maine Medical Center
Mercy Hospital

Puget Sound, Wash.

Harborview Medical Center
Valley Medical Center

The hospitals will participate through a "learning network" to test new ideas, quantify results and share lessons learned. Program successes will be shared nationwide, giving hospitals concrete and tested examples of interventions that they can adapt in their own busy hospital environments.

Led by RWJF, the two collaboratives will be overseen by the Center for Health Care Quality at The George Washington University Medical Center School of Public Health and Health Services, which serves as the national program office for AF4Q.

In every region involved in AF4Q, broad-based teams of people who get, give and pay for care are working together to improve health care quality. These alliances include participation from physicians, nurses, patients, consumers and consumer groups, purchasers, hospitals, health plans, safety net providers, and others. By aligning people from across the community in different AF4Q initiatives, RWJF hopes to achieve communitywide transformation of health care.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. For more than 35 years the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime.