Evaluating a Ten-Year Effort to Transform Health Care [RWJF.org]

In 2006, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) launched a bold, ten year experiment that became one of its largest philanthropic investments—the Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) initiative which sought to lift the overall quality, equality, and value of health care in 16 communities across the country.

In each AF4Q community, a regional alliance of doctors, patients, consumers, insurers, and employers worked collaboratively to transform their local health care system. Lessons from these transformations were then used to develop national models for reform. Alliances were tasked with addressing five “forces” to enhance quality while reducing costs:

• performance measurement and reporting
• quality improvement
• engaging consumers in their health and health care
• reducing health care disparities
• reforming payment

Continuous Learning

Throughout its history, RWJF has placed a premium on evaluation to understand our work and its impact. So in addition to providing grants and technical assistance to the 16 alliances, RWJF funded an independent, scientific evaluation of the AF4Q program.

Led by Dennis Scanlon, PhD, director of the Center for Health Care and Policy Research at the Pennsylvania State University, the evaluation team includes researchers from the Pennsylvania State University, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, and George Washington University who are assessing the impact of AF4Q and identifying key lessons.