Imagine an insurer working collaboratively with physicians, hospital partners, and community leaders to develop programs and initiatives that improve care delivery, save lives and reduce health care costs. Imagine these programs involve physicians across a state developing a collaborative context in which to do this work. In Michigan, this is the reality, and we have seen truly remarkable results.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) and its HMO, Blue Care Network (BCN), fund Collaborative Quality Initiatives (CQIs), statewide hospital quality improvement programs that are developed and administered by Michigan physicians and hospital partners. Through the use of statewide clinical registries, CQIs collect comprehensive clinical data on patients’ risk factors, surgical procedures performed and the resulting outcomes. The collection of this surgical care data includes information about rapidly evolving surgical procedures that may often involve new techniques about which the evidence base is thin. Patterns in care delivery and associated...
