A coalition of influential healthcare groups including the National Quality Forum and America's Health Insurance Plans have come together to create a single, consistent national approach to quality and cost measures. The effort is being funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which is kicking in $16 million in grants to fund the effort. The idea is to beat existing quality initiatives, which have generally generated only 3 percent improvements over the past three years, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

To develop the standards, the groups will pull together data from national health plans to look at care patterns, along with Medicare data, to look at quality and cost variables. The coalition also plans to study racial and ethnic care disparities.

To find out more about the effort:
- read this Modern Healthcare article [1]

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