Q&A: Business Coalitions Join Choosing Wisely Campaign
In February, the ABIM Foundation and the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions announced a partnership to expand the Choosing Wisely campaign through a national network of business coalitions. National Alliance President and CEO, Michael Thompson, answered five questions about this new collaboration and its goals.
What is National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions’ mission?
“The National Alliance’s membership is comprised of approximately 50 healthcare purchaser-led coalitions collectively supporting over 12,000 healthcare purchasers providing health coverage to over 45 million Americans. The National Alliance helps to lead improvements in health, well-being and value for our companies and communities across the country.”
What drew your interest in a partnership with the ABIM Foundation on the Choosing Wisely campaign?
“The National Alliance’s focus on healthcare value aligns very well with the ABIM Foundation’s campaign for Choosing Wisely. The ABIM Foundation, through its work with Choosing Wisely, has been working with professional societies to identify opportunities and priorities to eliminate low-value care. Many of our coalition members are already working with the ABIM Foundation on Choosing Wisely, and it was a natural fit to make the information more broadly available to all of our members and their communities.”
How will you work together to advance the Choosing Wisely campaign? First steps?
“With an expanded National Alliance role strategically aligned with the ABIM Foundation, we can better accelerate and coordinate our efforts to expand and promote Choosing Wisely to our network of coalitions and their employer members. We are already coordinating efforts to heighten awareness about the overall campaign and the diverse coalition efforts to promote it. We have also convened a Choosing Wisely Purchaser Advisory Committee with representation from over 10 coalitions that will guide us in targeted efforts, including our initial deeper dive national dissemination campaigns (e.g., through our National Alliance Action Briefs).”
Why do you think the campaign resonates with your stakeholders?
“Healthcare affordability will be enhanced if we can both improve health and eliminate unnecessary care. Choosing Wisely provides a common language across stakeholders to build a collective agenda to do so. Purchasers, providers and health plans can align and work together to reduce unnecessary services and educate and focus consumers on what truly matters to improve their health and well-being.”
When you look into the future, what will success look like for this collaboration?
“Choosing Wisely has gotten off to a good start in helping change the conversation around healthcare value. Now the National Alliance needs to bring more focus to the quantifying the opportunity and engaging stakeholders community by community to reduce the variation around high-value care. Employers can also play a role in educating and providing support to employees and their families to engage more effectively with their physicians in shared decision-making on treatment options to change the dynamics related to unnecessary services. We will know we are making a difference when the quantifiable variation in low-value care is reduced year over year, community by community. Over time, we expect to pay for value, not the volume, of procedures.”
