Aligning Forces for Quality: The Regional Market Project

Aligning Forces for Quality: The Regional Market Project is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) designed to help communities across the country improve the quality of health care for patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, asthma, depression and heart disease. The $25-million program is part of RWJF's continuing effort to close the gap between the quality of health care that Americans now receive and what the health care system is capable of delivering.

The premise of Aligning Forces for Quality is that no single person, group or profession can improve the quality of care without the support of others. Aligning Forces for Quality seeks to drive quality improvement by aligning key forces, including health care providers (physicians/physician groups, nurses, clinics), health care purchasers (employers and insurers) and health care consumers (patients).

The program seeks to:

• Help providers improve their own ability to deliver quality care.
• Help providers measure and publicly report their performance.
• Help patients and consumers understand their vital role in recognizing and demanding high-quality care.

The 14 participating communities are:

Cincinnati, OH,  Cleveland, OH,  Detroit, MI, Humboldt County, CA, Kansas City, MO, Maine, Memphis, TN, Minnesota, Seattle, WA, Willamette Valley, OR, Wisconsin, Western Michigan, Western New York, and York, PA.

Participating communities each receive grants of $600,000 to use over three years in planning, convening, coordinating and developing infrastructure to support the three project areas. The grantees also have access to a substantial pool of technical assistance support.

For more information on the project, click here.