The National Quality Strategy (NQS) is mandated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Act and established through a clear and combined process. NQS focuses on six major priorities to improve health and healthcare quality. These priorities are applicable for the consumer as well as for the healthcare providers. As a healthcare consumer, I believe that each person and family members must be engaged as partners in their healthcare. This priority is clearly depicted by PatientsLikeMe that was founded to educate people and families with chronic conditions and make them aware by providing answers to their chronic conditions. The initiatives from PatientsLikeMe align with the NGS priority as a social network where people can easily crowd-source mutual understanding from other patients, and also experience their disease. Is it possible for persons and families to engage as partners in healthcare without being educated? I believe that PatientsLikeMe displays the prospective for its patient community and educates people, families and partners around rare diseases and treatments.
As a healthcare provider, the priority which I consider is important is to make quality care more affordable for families, governments, employers, and develop new healthcare delivery models because every person needs healthcare at an affordable price. How can everyone be provided affordable healthcare? To provide affordable care to everyone the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts developed the Alternative Quality Contract (AQC), an innovative global payment model that associates a population-based budget with considerable performance incentive payments tied to the most recent generally established procedures of quality, outcomes, and patient understanding . To meet quality care more affordable, I believe that the Alternative Quality Contract endorses person, family centered care, and makes quality care inexpensive through the controls of payment, measurement, and modernization.
References
NGS. (2016). PatientsLikeMe. Retrieved from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: https://www.ahrq.gov/workingforquality/pias/plmpia.htm
NQS. (2016). Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Alternative Quality Contract. Retrieved from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: https://www.ahrq.gov/workingforquality/pias/bcsbmapia.htm
