Group Health Medical Centers
Rated in 2010 'Community Checkup'

Group Health Cooperative medical centers have been rated "better than regional average" in 13 out of 19 quality measures in the 2010 Puget Sound Health Alliance Community Checkup.

Group Health received more better-than-average ratings than any of the other 76 Puget Sound medical groups included in the report, released on July 15.

The Puget Sound Health Alliance is a non-profit, non-partisan regional collaborative working to improve health care quality and affordability. The Community Checkup measures care in doctors' offices and hospitals, highlighting where performance is high or improvement is possible. The report measures care in the use of antibiotics and imaging, asthma, depression, diabetes, heart disease, prevention, and generic drugs.

Dr. Matt Handley, MD, medical director for quality, cited Group Health's focus on patients as a whole, rather than specific diseases, as the reason for our high performance.

"Most health care delivery systems have improvement on projects for specific patients," Handley said. "They may make change in one area, but don't improve care for all patients. At Group Health, we're meeting patients' needs at every touch, on both chronic disease and wellness."

A comparison between results in the 2008 and 2010 Community Checkup reports shows progress in the quality of health care in the Puget Sound region over the past two years, but also room for improvement. While many patients receive care that rivals the best found nationwide, some do not receive the effective care that they should.

"Variation in care remains an issue in our region, just as it is across the country, and a challenge to the effort to improve the quality and cost of care," said Steve Hill, chairman of the Alliance board and director of the Washington State Department of Retirement Systems. "These results underscore the collective effort required to fundamentally change our health care system. Everyone has room to improve the quality and value of care, just at the time the region prepares to carry out national health care reform."

"We believe that what gets measured gets managed and improves," said Mary McWilliams, executive director of the Alliance. "No medical group excels at everything, so everyone has room for improvement. The Community Checkup allows us to build on a strong foundation of performance measurement, public reporting and performance improvement to explore new ways to deliver high-value health care in our region."