In New Jersey, the health insurance market for small businesses is in peril. Enrollment is dropping and premiums are rising. In 2022 alone, premiums jumped an alarming average rate of 10.4 percent. In 2005, nearly 1 million employees of small businesses and their families had health insurance through the New Jersey’s small group market. Today,…Read More…

Each year, we share all that we have accomplished together and our goals for the future in our Annual Report. I would like to highlight a few numbers that help tell the story of our collaborative work in 2021:   We welcomed 21 new member organizations and now have 121 member organizations working across 10…Read More…

This piece was originally featured in NJ.com Opinions. By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist Adelisa Perez-Hudgins, MSN, RN, the Director of Quality for the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute. Before I joined the Quality Institute, I worked as a telemetry nurse on a heart failure unit and later at an intermediate care unit. I closely monitored multiple…Read More…

Five years ago, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) predicted that by 2030 New Jersey would face the third largest nursing shortage in the nation. That was well before 18 percent of all American health care workers quit their jobs during the pandemic.   The crisis of health care worker shortages extends beyond nurses…Read More…

Last week I traveled to Washington, D.C., with Adelisa Perez-Hudgins, our Director of Quality, to attend the kickoff meeting of Leapfrog’s Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Advisory Committee, which I chair. This was our first in-person gathering, and it provided us with an opportunity to get to know each other, share our perspectives, and to reaffirm…Read More…

New Jersey has lifted the state’s public health emergency, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief. We’re re-opening our state just as the earliest signs of spring are beginning to emerge. It’s a time to share our gratitude to those who pushed themselves above and beyond to protect us — and those who…Read More…

We held our annual Leapfrog Quality Briefing last week. In advance of the event, we asked every hospital CEO or senior quality officer to identify their quality and safety team members so we could recognize and celebrate them. The 293 hospital professionals we honored have been working throughout the pandemic, have modified protocols as needed,…Read More…

By Kate Shamszad, MS, MPH, Director of the Quality Institute’s Medicaid Policy Center (MPC)   At the Quality Institute, we support alternative payment models that move away from fee-for-service and toward better coordinated care that pays for better quality and outcomes. Most of the existing alternative payment models focus on chronic conditions or a specific…Read More…

I celebrated the New Year with my family at my childhood home in Southern California. My parents, both in their 80s, still live in the house where I grew up, which is not designed for older adults with multiple health issues. My visit home was wonderful, but also highlighted — in a real and concrete…Read More…

    I hope you were able join our virtual Winter Conference yesterday. The topic was Primary Care as a Common Good – The Prescription for a Healthier and More Equitable Health Care System. Our speakers, including keynote Dr. Shawna Hudson, spoke about the value of high-quality primary care, how that is defined, and how…Read More…