Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said Tuesday that he would like to see chartered value exchanges (CVEs) increase from 14 nationwide to 25 by January.
According to the HHS, a value exchange is a multi-stakeholder collaborative that has taken "clear action" to promote the use of healthcare IT and transparency in healthcare quality of care and pricing. CVEs are part of the Bush Administration's value-driven healthcare plan, embraced by hundreds of organizations nationwide.
At a town hall meeting organized by the North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance, Inc. and the WNC Health Network, Leavitt said CVEs will help organize the U.S. healthcare sector into a healthcare system.
"We need national standards, but local control," he added.
Leavitt put Medicare at the heart of America's healthcare woes, because other insurance companies pattern themselves after Medicare. Incentives based on volume, not value, are part of the problem, he said.
President Bush's value-driven healthcare plan, which began by executive order in August 2006, has four cornerstones: adoption of interoperable healthcare IT, the measurement of quality of care, price and care transparency and incentives based on performance.
The NCHICA board of directors passed a resolution Tuesday to establish a CVE in North Carolina, as recommended by Leavitt. Last year NCHICA was designated a community leader for value-driven healthcare by Leavitt, one of the requirements to be a CVE.
Allen Dobson, MD, chairman of Community Care of North Carolina, said adding a CVE to other initiatives already underway in the state is an important step.
"The leadership of NCHICA in promoting collaboration in this effort will prove to be extremely important to our future success," Dobson said. "North Carolina is now poised to be a national leader in building a better healthcare system for all our citizens."
Tom Earnhardt, NCHICA's president and senior vice president for strategic planning and development at Cabarrus Family Medicine, said NCHICA is "extremely pleased" to have prominent state and federal leaders encourage the acceleration of healthcare IT in North Carolina and across the country.
NCHICA is a nonprofit consortium that serves as an open forum for healthcare IT initiatives in North Carolina. Members include healthcare, research and information technology organizations.
Are CVEs being developed in your area? Tell Senior Editor Diana Manos about them at diana.manos@medtechpublishing.com.