Goals
States have long been laboratories of health care innovation, and today's economic environment has both increased pressure on states to reform their health systems and made it more challenging to find the resources to do so. The Commonwealth Fund's State High Performance Health Systems program is designed to help states develop the infrastructure needed to improve health care quality and outcomes—and to draw out and share lessons of national import from the experience of states that are moving toward comprehensive health care reforms.
To enable states to help local health care providers better meet the needs of their patient populations, the program will support approaches that offer providers shared access to the clinical support and practice-management services essential to achieving high performance. Such resources will often be developed though state-initiated, public–private partnerships. To inform and support state health care leaders, additional projects will facilitate information-sharing among states working toward health care reform.
History and Projects
The State High Performance Health Systems program builds on the work of the Fund's former State Innovations and Child Development and Preventive Care programs. In the latter program, the Fund has had considerable success engaging and supporting state health system leaders to develop models of shared resources.
Today, the Fund is supporting the development of improvement partnerships, statewide multi-stakeholder collaborations designed to help implement reforms in provider practices. The Vermont Child Health Improvement Program, the first of these initiatives, is now assisting public–private partnerships in 19 states. Our newest Assuring Better Child Health and Development (ABDC) initiative is working with states to create shared care coordination resources in their communities, and we are testing replication of Connecticut’s Help Me Grow program, a statewide system to increase identification and referral of children with developmental problems. The Fund also is disseminating information on Community Care of North Carolina, a health care organization in which the sharing of community resources has served as a key component of networks of multiple, autonomous practices.
Going forward, the State High Performance Health Systems program proposes to continue some of these current projects and develop new grants that aim to assist states in networking practices and providers through shared resources, as well as shared clinical and fiscal responsibilities for populations of patients. This strategy has the additional advantages of promoting health care system integration, assisting states as they implement health care reforms at the practice level, and improving the quality of care, especially for individuals receiving publicly financed health care.
The State High Performance Health Systems program will also build on the Fund’s experience with monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on health system innovation and performance. We will systematically monitor states’ health care reform efforts, support work evaluating states making notable progress, and focus on lessons relevant in the evolution of national health care reform. We will analyze states’ capacity to operate effective insurance exchanges, adoption of significant payment reform, the integration of Medicaid into statewide reforms, and how states assist hospitals, physicians, and insurers in working together. We also will support technical assistance, case studies, meetings, and other approaches to informing state leaders about key issues and innovations in health care reform and help them share their experiences with federal policymakers.
To apply for a grant from the program, visit the Applicant and Grantee Resources page.