AARP

AARP is pleased to support the goals of Care About Your Care. We are a nonprofit, nonpartisan social welfare organization with a membership and offices in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Our mission is to help people age 50+ have independence, choice and control in ways that are beneficial and affordable to them and society as a whole. We seek to help our members live long and healthy lives, and we strive to do this, in part, through the provision of materials that help them become actively engaged in their health care.

AARP produces AARP The Magazine, AARP Bulletin, AARP VIVA (the only bilingual U.S. publication dedicated exclusively to the 50+ Hispanic community), and our website, www.aarp.org. As a trusted source of information, these communication channels enable us to offer our members a wide range of information about health and health care that is especially suited to people age 50 and older.

AARP collaborates with government- and private-sector partners, such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control, and Consumers Union to offer reliable, objective resources designed to help older adults stay healthy and be informed about their health care. For example, we co-brand publications with AHRQ, such as the Stay Healthy at 50+ brochures and consumer guides that compare medical treatments. We offer information on a wide array of topics, such as flu and other vaccines for older adults; guides to make the best use of health coverage, including Medicare; tools to calculate BMI; and resources to support medication management education and outreach, such as the AARP Doughnut Hole Calculator and the Drug Savings Tool (with content provided by Consumer Report's Best Buy Drugs).

www.aarp.org

American College of Physicians

The American College of Physicians (ACP) wishes to express its support for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Care About Your Care initiative. Improving the quality of care and the overall health of the population requires active participation by patients in their own health care. This includes their knowing as much as possible about their conditions; understanding that quality health care is care that is proven to work; pursuing healthy lifestyles; using appropriate preventive services; and engaging in their care as an empowered member of the health care team.

Patients should be able to understand and use information that is available about the performance of health care professionals and institutions that provide care. However, it is essential for both patients and for the health care system that such performance information be of high quality. Specifically, the information must be accurate, reliable, valid, up-to-date and based on sound scientific evidence. The information provided should also be understandable for patients and the general public. The methods used for creating the information must be transparent and appropriate, and allow for the individuals being evaluated to confirm the accuracy of information pertaining to them.

ACP supports initiatives such as Care About Your Care which educate patients on the effective use of performance and quality information to make informed health care choices.

www.acponline.org

The National Committee for Quality Assurance

Because autumn open enrollment is many Americans' yearly opportunity to change insurance coverage, fall is an ideal time to Care About Your Care. The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) suggests that you:

Select a Health Plan That Suits You. NCQA releases its annual Health Insurance Plan Rankings on September 20 (www.ncqa.org/rankings). Consumer Reports will publish the rankings in October, online and in print.

Choose a Good Doctor. Use NCQA's Recognition Directory (http://recognition.ncqa.org) to find a doctor who provides outstanding care. Medical offices designated by NCQA as patient-centered medical homes (PCMH) provide "care the way you want it to be" by combining technology, teamwork and research on treatments that really work. You can also find doctors who provide high-quality care for back pain, diabetes, stroke and heart disease.

Learn to Advocate for Your Own Care. Get in the back-to-school spirit by learning about "shared decision-making" tools: pamphlets, DVDs and websites that use plain language to explain the pros and cons of various treatments. People are more likely to pick treatments they can stick with and get results they want when they understand their choices.

For more than 20 years, NCQA has used measurement, transparency and accountability to save millions of lives and billions of dollars in wasted care or care that doesn't work. NCQA commends Care About Your Care for its involvement in this important work at this time of year.

NCQA is pleased to work with Care About Your Care on these and other timely topics.

Sarah Thomas
Vice President, Public Policy and Communications
National Committee for Quality Assurance

www.ncqa.org

National Health Council

The National Health Council (NHC) believes that the most effective health care system is one that is patient centered, and the most patient-centered delivery system is one where individuals feel empowered to ask questions until they get the right answers to make the right decisions in order to live a longer, healthier life. Patients should call the shots about their health care.

As the only organization of its kind to provide a united voice for people with chronic diseases and disabilities and their family caregivers, the NHC is proud to be a partner in the national Care About Your Care initiative. We believe the goals of this program mirror the efforts of the patient-advocacy community to give people the knowledge to find appropriate solutions that meet their personal needs.

Patients need to be assured that no matter what their disease or disability, there's a national advocacy organization out there to help answer questions about their individual condition, and the National Health Council has the Web resources to direct them to the right organization.

Myrl Weinberg, FASAE, CAE
President
National Health Council

nationalhealthcouncil.org

AcademyHealth

AcademyHealth fully supports Care About Your Care—a joint effort by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services—and its goal of helping to increase consumer awareness of strategies to identify and receive better care. As an association that brings together researchers, policymakers and providers in the pursuit of higher-quality, more accessible, higher-value health care, AcademyHealth realizes that patients, consumers and caregivers all play a vital role in supporting individual health and building healthier communities.

To this end, we are working to foster engagement and collaboration between the consumer and research communities through a variety of programs. This fall we will offer a free webinar series oriented around meaningful patient and consumer engagement in the evidence-generation process, as well as an invitational meeting that will focus on patient-reported outcomes—including lessons learned from research to date and insights from patients and consumers.

We also are working on a new collaborative that will convene representatives from the patient, consumer and research communities to address their respective needs and concerns, and to provide shared opportunities to facilitate the generation of better and more relevant evidence.

Through our advocacy arm, we encourage Congress to legislate funding for the federal agencies that support health services research. It is our view that federal funding for research on the organization, quality and value of the health system is essential, as this investment could deliver real financial and health benefits for all levels of government, employers, insurers, and ultimately consumers.

Lisa Simpson, MB, BCh, MPH, FAAP
President and CEO
AcademyHealth

AcademyHealth.org

American College of Cardiology

Patient-centered care is based on empowering patients to become active participants in their own health care. To succeed, it not only requires patients to understand their disease and the care they receive, it encourages and requires them to make informed decisions regarding their treatment and the management of their condition.

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) believes it is critical that patients have the ability to identify quality care and are encouraged to work directly with their clinicians as part of the care team so that they may have a positive care experience and are better positioned to achieve optimal health outcomes. Along with providing unbiased, condition-specific patient education, CardioSmart™ is the College’s primary vehicle for communicating this important vision directly to the patient community.

Through CardioSmart™, this partnership with the Care About Your Care program, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Department of Health and Human Services, the ACC looks forward to continuing our mission of achieving quality care through education and optimized patient-clinician relationships.

Mary Norine Walsh, MD, FACC
Chair, Patient-Centered Care Committee, Board of Trustees
American College of Cardiology

cardiosource.org

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is the premier medical organization dedicated to the advancement of women’s lifelong health care through advocacy, education, practice and research. We are the internationally recognized source for clinical guidelines, patient education and leadership for women’s health. We continuously develop innovations to improve quality and safety for women’s health care including providing hospital quality reviews for over 25 years.

We believe that excellence in patient-physician communication is a key driver in adherence to therapeutic recommendations and results in increased diagnostic accuracy and patient satisfaction. This partnership cannot be achieved without women taking an active role in their health care.

Consumers can visit the ACOG Patient Page for trusted information from the leading experts in women’s health care. Patients can also use the “Making the Most of Your Health Care Visit” Fact Sheet that encourages women to be active members of their health care team by preparing for and actively participating in their visits. The fact sheet outlines steps a woman can take to get the most from her health care visit.

The foundation for a positive patient–physician interaction is formed by establishing a partnership and creating a meaningful dialogue. This is why the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is proud to support the Care About Your Care campaign as part of our ongoing commitment to our patients and their families.

Gerald F. Joseph Jr., MD, FACOG
Vice President, Practice Activities
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

acog.org

America's Health Insurance Plans

Our community strongly supports Care About Your Care because we believe that the engagement of individual patients in their own health and health care is fundamental to a healthier population and a better health care system. The nation’s health insurers have been at the forefront of efforts to improve the quality of care consumers receive, and have continued to demonstrate improvement year after year on important measures that matter greatly to the health of tens of millions of people across the country. We have also been at the forefront of efforts to improve the experience of care for patients, and to upgrade the information consumers receive about their benefits, preventing disease, managing their conditions, and evaluating those clinicians and facilities that provide their care. Patients who are equipped with information that allows them to seek out and recognize good quality are healthier as a result, and are full partners in the quality enterprise in American health care.

Karen Ignagni
President and CEO
America’s Health Insurance Plans

ahip.org

American Nurses Association

For more than 100 years, the American Nurses Association has been committed to improving the quality of health care and ensuring patient safety. As the largest of the health care professions, more than 2.6 million registered Nurses (RNs) currently practice in a wide range of settings including hospitals, outpatient surgery centers, long-term-care facilities and community-based locations such as schools, clinics and private practices.

ANA participates in many national initiatives aimed at improving the quality of health care: the National Priorities Partnership, National Quality Forum, Hospital Quality Alliance, Nursing Alliance for Quality Care, and Department of Health and Human Services Partnership for Patients.

The association works to advance the nursing profession to improve health for all. Activities include: setting standards of professional practice, advocating for safe nurse staffing, quality measurement and researchM, and fostering excellence through a variety of programs managed by its subsidiary, the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), including certification for individual nurses and credentialing of health care organizations. One of these programs is ANCC’s Magnet Recognition® Program. Magnet designation provides consumers with the ultimate benchmark to measure the quality of care. Today, more than 386 health care facilities across the United States have earned Magnet status. By choosing a hospital with Magnet status, patients can have confidence in the overall quality of a hospital and know they are going to receive excellent nursing care.

ANA is pleased to support the Care About Your Care campaign to help empower consumers to be active participants in their health care and to make informed choices.

Karen A. Daley, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN
President
American Nurses Association

nursingworld.org

Consumers Union/Safe Patient Project

Seventy-five years ago, Consumers Union was founded to provide consumers with “information and counsel...on goods and services,” and over the years we’ve featured advice to consumers on a variety of health products in Consumer Reports. Our mission is to work for a fair, just and safe marketplace for all consumers and to empower consumers to protect themselves.

We applaud the focus on consumer awareness in Care About Your Care, and agree that, as our health system changes, consumers must play a key role in managing their health. To do so, they need good information so they can identify options, make comparisons, and make informed decisions based on their preferences and values. This national effort can assist the public in identifying where to find reliable information and how to use it.

Consumers Union’s participation with Care About Your Care will emphasize our Safe Patient Project and the Consumer Reports Ratings that focus on safety improvements. Our Safe Patient Project has worked to eliminate medical harm through public disclosure of hospital infections and medical errors, complaints against physicians and hospitals, and information about the safety of prescription drugs. Our Health Ratings Center currently provides Best Buy Drugs ratings on prescription medications for more than 35 medical conditions; ratings of more than 3,000 U.S. hospitals; ratings of hundreds of surgical groups that perform heart bypass surgery; and ratings for a wide array of healthy living products from fitness equipment to sunscreens.

We look forward to working with like-minded organizations and individuals through this initiative.

Lisa McGiffert
Director
Safe Patient Project

consumersunion.org

HealthPartners

HealthPartners is committed to transforming health care and is committed to achieving the Triple Aim: improving the health of the population, enhancing the patient’s experience, and making health care affordable. We know the health care system can be difficult to navigate. We are committed to changing the system so it is reliable, easy to use, and personalized to individual needs. We also are focused on providing support and tools responsive to the needs and desires of the people we serve. We have a number of initiatives already in place aimed at providing consumers the information they want and need to make the best health care decisions possible. We are actively expanding these efforts and see the Care About Your Care campaign as an excellent way to further enhance our work. We applaud the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and its partners for this work and look forward to being part of this exciting effort.

Andrea Walsh
Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer
HealthPartners

healthpartners.com

The Leapfrog Group

The Leapfrog Group is pleased to join with leading health care organizations to support Care About Your Care.

Leapfrog’s membership of employer purchasers are fighting so that consumers can find out how safe their hospitals are,” said Leapfrog’s CEO Leah Binder. “Purchasers persuade hospitals to complete the annual Leapfrog Hospital Survey, and Leapfrog reports the findings publicly, comparing hospitals across the country on critical issues like rates of infections, rates of unsafe early deliveries, and mortality on common, high-risk surgeries like heart bypass and angioplasty. Most of this information is available nowhere else, and Leapfrog tells it like it is.

”We encourage consumers to use this information, because picking the right hospital can have a life-changing impact on your well-being. If a hospital declines to publicly report to Leapfrog, consumers should pressure them to report—there is no better way than Leapfrog for a hospital to demonstrate its transparency, and people deserve to know how their hospital is performing before entrusting their lives to its care.”

leapfroggroup.org

National Partnership for Women and Families

“This is a pivotal moment in the work to improve health care in America. Health reform is now law, but the hard work of fixing our health care system is really just beginning—and consumers have a critical role to play in that work. The National Partnership for Women & Families is proud to support the Care About Your Care campaign because we want all Americans to have comprehensive, coordinated, quality health care. We are far from that today, and our oldest and sickest patients are at especially high risk for poor care, medical errors, hospital-acquired infections, and care that isn't coordinated. It's time for change. We need doctors to talk to one another and to listen to the concerns of patients and their family caregivers. We need medical records at our fingertips, and patient engagement in all aspects of our care. Only when we achieve that will patients and their families no longer be left to fend for themselves in a health care system that is failing those who need it most,” says Debra Ness, President of the National Partnership.

The National Partnership for Women & Families is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that has been working for 40 years to advance issues essential to women and families, with a focus on quality, affordable health care, fairness and equal opportunity in the workplace, and policies that help women and men meet the dual demands of work and family.

The National Partnership leads the Campaign for Better Care, which aims to ensure that the reformed health care system provides the comprehensive, coordinated, patient- and family-centered care that older adults and individuals with multiple health problems need. The National Partnership also provides technical assistance and support to 16 Aligning Forces for Quality Alliances as they engage consumers and advocates in improving the quality of health care and the overall health of their communities.

nationalpartnership.org

Society of Thoracic Surgeons

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) is pleased to participate in the Care About Your Care campaign. Founded in 1964, STS is a not-for-profit organization representing more than 6,200 surgeons, researchers and allied health care professionals worldwide who are dedicated to ensuring the best possible outcomes for surgeries of the heart, lung and esophagus. STS is committed to helping cardiothoracic surgeons provide the highest-quality patient care.

We at STS believe the public has a right to know about the quality of surgical outcomes so that consumers can make informed decisions about their health care.

STS is well known for its Adult Cardiac Surgery Database, the premier clinical registry for cardiac surgery, with information from more than 4.5 million surgical records submitted by more than 94 percent of U.S. centers currently performing adult cardiac surgery. Building on those data, STS developed its star rating system that allows heart bypass patients to assess surgical centers based on overall performance, complications, survival rates and other quality measures. In collaboration with STS, Consumers Union currently publishes STS star ratings for more than 300 surgical practices on its Consumer Reports health website.

In the past decade, there has been a dramatic reduction in mortality among heart surgery patients, due largely to surgeons' willingness to track—and improve—their performance. If you are facing the possibility of heart surgery, be sure the surgical group you’re considering participates in the STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database. Visit www.sts.org/publicreporting to learn more.

Michael J. Mack, MD
President
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

sts.org