Publicly reported quality-of-care measures influenced Wisconsin physician groups to improve performance.

Public reporting of how physicians and hospitals perform on certain quality of care measures is increasingly common, but little is known about whether such disclosures have an impact on the quality of care delivered to patients. We analyzed fourteen publicly reported quality of ambulatory care measures from 2004 to 2009 for the Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality, a voluntary consortium of physician groups. We also fielded a survey of the collaborative's members and analyzed Medicare billing data to independently compare members' performance to that of providers in the rest of Wisconsin, neighboring states, and the rest of the United States.

Public reporting helped drive quality improvement in outpatient diabetes care among Wisconsin physician groups.

Public reporting on the quality of ambulatory health care is growing, but knowledge of how physician groups respond to such reporting has not kept pace. We examined responses to public reporting on the quality of diabetes care in 409 primary care clinics within seventeen large, multispecialty physician groups. We determined that a focus on publicly reported metrics, along with participation in large or externally sponsored projects, increased a clinic's implementation of diabetes improvement interventions.

Connecting statewide health information technology strategy to payment reform.

Objective: To develop an effective way to link statewide healthcare information technology strategy to payment reform.

Study Design: Investigation of what Wisconsin did to develop and publicly share provider performance data and then use those data to drive payment reform.

Methods: We examine 2 statewide organizations (Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality and Wisconsin Health Information Organization) and 1 integrated health system (ThedaCare) to evaluate how they pool data and use those data to measure provider performance.

Aligning forces for quality: the Wisconsin way.

Aligning Forces for Quality offers a tremendous opportunity for Wisconsin's health care stakeholders to work together to advance the quality of chronic care. Wisconsin is well-poised to work collaboratively on this initiative, has already taken significant initial steps toward its aims, and has the capacity for further improvement. Together we can make a difference by aligning the forces for quality the Wisconsin way.