This issue brief from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation summarizes some of the lessons being learned from its Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) initiative, which is supporting 16 regional health improvement collaboratives that bring together people who get, give, and pay for care to improve the value of health care in their community. These multistakeholder groups include organizations that might not otherwise collaborate, including purchasers, patients, providers, and payers. The two key lessons being learned are:
- Health care is local and improving it requires those in the community to be the driving force for improvement.
- Health care collaboratives offer an independent forum for convening stakeholders, some of whom are competitors, filling a role no one else in the community can.
