Aligning Forces for Quality

Improving Health and Health Care Across

America

The State of Health Care Quality

• Despite spending more on health care than any other country, the U.S. lags behind most major industrialized nations in many important aspects of the health care we provide.

• Across America, there are serious gaps between the health care that people should receive and the care they actually receive.

• Good health care and bad health care is being delivered in hospitals and in doctors’ offices.

• There are too many mistakes, too much miscommunication and too much inequity in our health care system.

What is Aligning Forces for Quality?

• Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s signature effort in its longstanding commitment to improve the quality of health care that Americans receive.

• The goal is to lift the overall quality of health care in targeted communities, reduce racial and ethnic disparities and provide models for national reform.

• While health care quality is a national problem, health care is delivered locally, and fixing it requires local action.

• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is working with those who get care, give care and pay for care to deliver lasting change across entire communities.

AF4Q Areas of Focus

• Improving quality across all settings • Engaging consumers • Measuring provider performance • Increasing public reporting • Engaging nurses to be active

leaders • Addressing inequities • Overcoming language barriers

Accomplishing the Goals of AF4Q

AF4Q is working to achieve its goals by:

• Helping physicians improve the quality of care for patients.

• Engaging people to become better partners with their doctors and make informed choices about their care.

• Improving care across different settings, with a special focus on the central role that nursing plays.

• Reducing inequality in care for patients of different races and ethnicities by measuring gaps in care and targeting strategies for improvement.

2008 AF4Q Communities

AF4Q in Our Community

• NOTE: AF4Q community leaders to insert language about current goals and activities.

Next Steps

• NOTE: AF4Q community leaders to insert language about immediate next steps at the local level.

For More Information

Visit www.rwjf.org/qualityequality.