November 2024
President's Report
The Essence of Collaboration
Understanding the "We" in WCHQ
Recently, at our 20th anniversary celebration, I spoke to the full Assembly and Board of Directors about the difference between collaborative relationships and vendor relationships, a distinction that lies at the very heart of WCHQ.
A collaborative relationship is a partnership in which all parties work together toward a common goal. This type of relationship is built on mutual respect, shared vision, and collective responsibility. Each member of the collaborative is considered an equal partner, contributing their expertise, resources, and insights.
At its inception, WCHQ had no standalone employees and was established and staffed by its members. Today, this collaborative spirit continues, with strategic decisions made collectively and work efforts aimed at achieving exceptional outcomes.
Through its collaborative efforts, WCHQ has achieved significant milestones in healthcare quality improvement. By fostering an environment of shared learning and collective problem-solving, WCHQ members have been able to implement evidence-based practices, reduce healthcare disparities, and improve patient outcomes across the state.
As we look to the future, it is crucial for members and partners to remember that WCHQ operates as a collaborative, requiring the support and input of stakeholders as equal partners and contributors. This collaborative approach distinguishes our organization from any other in the nation and is the key to our continued success.
Gabrielle Rude Elected to Civitas Board of Directors
WCHQ President and CEO Gabrielle Rude, CPHQ, PhD, was recently elected to the Civitas Networks for Health Board of Directors. Dr. Rude was one of two new members, elected to the board by their peers, for three-year terms.
Dr. Rude was recently a speaker at Civitas’ 2024 Annual Conference in Detroit, MI as part of a panel presentation called, “Going Deep with Data: A Real-World Approach to Value-Based Health Care Through Broad-Spectrum Data Analysis.”
Civitas Networks for Health is a national nonprofit collaborative of over 170 member organizations dedicated to improving health through health information exchange, data use and cross-sector collaboration.
Data Spotlight
"Two Decades of Progress: WCHQ's Impact on Healthcare Quality"
Over the last 20 years, our members have committed to continuous healthcare quality improvement, resulting in substantial increases in the number of patients receiving preventive care. These efforts have yielded impressive outcomes, with screening and vaccination rates exceeding national averages. Such accomplishments underscore our unwavering commitment to elevating healthcare quality and ensuring all patients receive exceptional and affordable quality care. Please join us in celebrating the impact that our members have made over the years.
Colorectal Cancer Screening
- The number of patients screened has grown from 284,000 annually to over 804,000 annually. These screenings have detected an estimated 3,200 colorectal cancers.
- Members have improved their screening rate from 62% in 2005 to 74% in 2023. This outperforms the national average of 72%.
- The drop from 78% to 74% observed in the latest results stems from a change in measurement. Starting in 2023, we lowered the age range to include 45-50 year olds. This aligns with the latest recommendations from the United States Preventative Services Task Force.
Adolescent Immunizations
- The number of patients vaccinated has grown from 15,000 in 2015 to over 18,000 in 2023. During that time a total of 170,000 adolescents have received all of their recommended vaccinations on time.
- Members have improved their performance on this measure from 80% in 2015 to 87% in 2023.
Childhood Immunizations
- The number of patients vaccinated has grown from about 20,000 in 2015 to almost 23,000 in 2023. During that time a total of 220,000 children have received all of their recommended vaccinations on time.
HPV Vaccinations
- The number of patients vaccinated has grown from 15,000 in 2015 to over 18,000 in 2023. During that time a total of 85,000 adolescents have received all of their recommended vaccinations on time.
- Members have improved their performance on this measure from 80% in 2015 to 87% in 2023.
Steady Improvement in Diabetes Control Rates Amid Growing Population
Achieving optimal control of diabetes is vital in reducing the risk of severe complications such as heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, and nerve damage. These health improvements not only enhance the lives of patients but also significantly decrease the financial burden on both individuals and the healthcare system.
WCHQ members have significantly improved diabetes care over 15 years, enhancing life quality for over 80,000 patients.
Diabetes Optimal Control examines whether a patient passes all the recommended tests and outcomes to prevent future complications. To pass the measure patients must have an A1c below 8.0%, blood pressure controlled to less than 140/90 mm Hg, be tobacco free, and, if applicable, be prescribed a daily aspirin and/or a statin. Many of these elements are included in other highly respected measurement bodies like National Committee for Quality Assurance and Minnesota Community Measures because of the impact they have on patient outcomes.
“The Diabetes Optimal Control measure is truly the gold standard for diabetes outcomes measurement,” shared Chris Elfner, Chair of WCHQ’s Measurement Advisory Committee. “It ties together all of the outcomes necessary for a patient to have optimal control over their diabetes and requires that they pass each individual measure to be considered in optimal control.”
WCHQ members have increased rates of optimal diabetes control by more than 127% since 2009, from 22% when measurement began to 50% currently.
As WCHQ’s membership has grown, so has the population included in our measurement. In 2009, around 100,000 people were included in this measure compared to over 200,000 in 2023. One of the most impressive aspects of this progress is that WCHQ members have continued to improve statewide diabetes control rates even as new health systems were added, which initially joined with lower rates of control. Despite the challenges posed by integrating new systems with varying levels of control, our effective strategies and commitment to optimal diabetes management has resulted in significant improvements, benefiting a growing number of patients.
Diabetes Control on the Rise
Member Profile
In recognition of the WCHQ 20th anniversary in 2024, we are planning a member profile each month.
Member Name: Fort HealthCare
Member Background: Fort HealthCare is a rural, independent health system anchored by Fort Memorial Hospital, a fully accredited 49-bed hospital in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. With over 80 years of service, Fort HealthCare provides a full spectrum of services through 14 primary and specialty care clinics across six communities and offers dedicated school nursing support to 11 area public school districts.
Number of Providers: 53 employed providers
Member of WCHQ Since: 2010
Current Quality Goals: "Fort HealthCare built out its population health management program in 2015. The foundation of this program is quality measurement. Fort HealthCare focuses on a variety of preventative screening measures such as breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screenings, as well as chronic disease measures related to diabetes and hypertension,” said Chris Barron, Executive Director – Population Health & Clinical Services. “Additionally, Fort HealthCare has quality goals related to pediatric wellness. Recently, Fort HealthCare began to stratify these quality metrics by a variety of demographics to detect and reduce health disparities in the community.”
WCHQ Engagement: Christopher Barron RPh, MBA Executive Director of Population Health and Clinical Services represents Fort HealthCare on the WCHQ Board of Directors and chairs the WCHQ Improvement Advisory Committee. Fort HealthCare is active in a variety of WCHQ Improvement Teams and co-designed the recent WCHQ Health Disparities Improvement Toolkit.
How Participation in WCHQ has Impacted Healthcare at Fort HealthCare: “Membership in WCHQ has raised the bar for quality improvement at Fort HealthCare, allowing Fort HealthCare to collaborate and benchmark against other healthcare organizations,” said Barron. “Perhaps the biggest impact comes from data modelling ideas Fort HealthCare gets from WCHQ. When we see something we like at the WCHQ level, we try to model it locally such as we’ve done with both data transparency and health disparity measurement.”
WCHQ Commemorates 20 Years with Statewide Quality Improvement Event
State’s Healthcare Leaders Gather to Celebrate WCHQ’s Impact on Wisconsin Healthcare Quality
Twenty years ago, WCHQ was founded with a vision of improving the lives of every person in Wisconsin through unprecedented collaboration between health systems. At our Statewide Quality Improvement Assembly and 20th Anniversary Celebration, we brought together over 150 representatives of WCHQ’s many stakeholder groups for a day of networking, sharing ideas and learning from our informative speakers.
“WCHQ History and The Future of Healthcare in America”
Dr. John Toussaint, who 20 years ago brought together health systems to form WCHQ, is now the Executive Chairman at Catalysis, an organization that focuses on transforming healthcare value. During his presentation, Dr. Toussaint recalled the early days of the Collaborative.
“I called a few friends, the CEOs of other Wisconsin health systems, and said we should be competing on quality. We should be publicly reporting our results,” Dr. Toussaint recalled. “If we publish our dirty laundry, we are probably going to improve it.”
As the founding six health systems continued forward, other Wisconsin systems became aware of the collaboration and wanted to join. “You have taken this to heights I never thought could happen,” Dr. Toussaint said.
Dr. Toussaint also spoke about technology tools at our disposal to help us on our improvement journey. “Technology will enable better processes,” he said. But he cautioned, “technology can’t fix processes.” Performance Improvement and IT teams need to talk to fix process problems.
Two Decades of Improvement
A common theme throughout the day was the impact that WCHQ has had on healthcare quality in Wisconsin over the last 20 years.
- Gabrielle Rude, President and CEO of WCHQ, shared some of the significant improvements over WCHQ’s 20 years in childhood immunizations, diabetes control and colorectal cancer screening. She also shared that identifying and eliminating healthcare disparities is a priority for WCHQ.
“We are unique for having this organization in our state,” she said. We are the only organization of our kind in the nation. WCHQ has data on almost 5 million lives over the last 10 years, more comprehensive than any dataset in the nation.” - Dr. Imran Andrabi is President and CEO of Froedtert ThedaCare Health and Chair of the WCHQ Board of Directors. Dr. Andrabi provided his insights regarding WCHQ’s impact on healthcare in Wisconsin.
He shared that the work we all do together is not just about improving quality, but also value.
“There is more to follow here than data,” he said. “The human impact. How do measure someone who did not go blind or have an amputation or stroke due to diabetes? How do we celebrate a colonoscopy that finds a polyp? These are things WCHQ is impacting.” - Dr. Julie Schuller, President and CEO of Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers, described for event attendees their journey to publicly report their quality metrics. Earlier this year, Sixteenth Street was the first Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) to do so, reporting 10 measures in June of this year.
“It was a very brave step for us to report,” she said. “We were taking a step into the unknown. All people need to be seen in Wisconsin. If we don’t put our patients out there, they won’t be seen. I think our patients are different and unless we call that out, we won’t address it. Disparities are not ok. We need to shine the light on disparities.” - Dr. Maureen Smith, Professor Emerita at UW-Madison and Founding Director of the Health Innovation Program (HIP), presented to the group about the important use of WCHQ data in healthcare research. She shared that, during WCHQ’s and HIP’s partnership, the research has resulted in millions of dollars in grants and hundreds of publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Smith shared several examples of research projects that HIP and WCHQ have completed together. One such example was Healthy Metric. Healthy Metric is a collaboration between WCHQ, UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, the Medical College of Wisconsin, Marshfield Clinic Research Institute and Wisconsin Health Information Organization. The aim of this partnership is to shine a light on health disparities in Wisconsin. This project was launched because Wisconsin ranks 40th in 50 states in premature death due to racial disparities, as well as the fact that the economic burden of health disparities in 2018 had reached $1.5 trillion. Healthy Metric has produced several reports illuminating the toll disparities has taken on care outcomes based on race, ethnicity, payer status and geography.
Thank you to our Event Sponsors and Exhibitors
We would like to thank our generous event sponsors for the day: Gold Level Sponsors Novo Nordisk and WellStack, Silver Level Sponsors Genentech and Merck and Contributor 1100 Partners. Thank you to all who joined us.
Be sure to mark your calendars for the 2025 WCHQ Assemblies.
