Ohio Health Quality Improvement Plan

Appendix IV — Co m m e n t s f r o mStatewide Or g a n iz a t io n shealth outcomes and that reward providers for meeting performance benchmarks• increase public reporting on quality, utilization, spending, and other transparency data to measure, analyze, andimprove quality and cost-effectiveness, and• enable consumers and providers to choose the most effective, safe, and appropriate treatments and medications.We believe that improving both quality and cost-effectiveness of health care is critical to achieving a healthy Ohio,but that expanding coverage to all Ohioans should not wait until delivery system reform is achieved. Rather, coverageexpansion and quality improvement must happen at the same time.Consumers – the customers and beneficiaries of health care – are too often excluded, confused, or ill-served by today’scomplex, fragmented health care system. Unless organized consumers are actively involved both in their own healthcare and in improving the health care system, efforts to improve health care may fail. We are committed to ensuring thata coordinated consumer voice informs the development, implementation and evaluation of all strategies described inthe plan, and we will work with others to organize effective consumer participation in key aspects of the work. We willalso work to make sure that consumers have adequate resources to become partners both in their own health care and inimproving the health care system for all.We also want to make sure that quality health care in Ohio is affordable to all consumers and will lend our expertise indeveloping affordability standards that prevent consumers from going without needed care or suffering financial hardship.We are committed to ensuring that health care delivery reform reduces racial and ethnic disparities in health care and thathealth care is culturally appropriate to all residents of Ohio. We also seek to prevent implementation of strategies andtactics that are punitive to, or impose hardships on consumers.43