Policy
With the insight and perspective of our members, the Quality Institute’s policy work spans areas such as payment reform and child and maternal health. We advise legislators and other decision makers on insurance policy, health care technology and strategies to improve patient care and population health. We help mayors create a culture of health in their communities and we facilitate family and community conversations about end-of-life care. A signature program, the Medicaid Policy Center, was launched in 2019 to identify national best practices and leading-edge solutions to improve and modernize the state’s Medicaid program.
Medicaid Policy Center
The Medicaid Policy Center (MPC) is dedicated to advancing the quality and cost effectiveness — and long-term sustainability — of the New Jersey Medicaid program to improve the health and wellness of New Jersey residents.
The MPC delivers independent research, analysis and policy solutions to improve health outcomes while also controlling costs — and works in partnership with other organizations and the state government agencies that operate the New Jersey Medicaid program.
The new center benefits from the Quality Institute’s tradition of bringing people from all corners of health care together to collaborate on innovative solutions to improve the state’s health care system.
Health Information Network
The Quality Institute is currently working with the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) and the New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII) to develop the New Jersey Health Information Network (NJHIN). The NJHIN is a legal and technical platform that allows for the electronic exchange of clinical data across health care providers in New Jersey. The NJHIN will help to overcome data sharing barriers across health care systems, which will improve quality of care, patient safety, and reduce overall costs. As an interoperable statewide network of public and private organizations, one of the NJHIN’s primary goals is to make patient data available at the point of care.
Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR)
How much and what types of payment reform are happening in New Jersey? Is payment reform delivering on its promise of improving the quality and affordability of health care? As part of the Scorecard on Payment Reform 2.0 initiative, the New Jersey Scorecards on Commercial and Medicaid Payment Reform bring together aggregate data from commercial and Medicaid health plans along with New Jersey’s performance on leading indicators of payment reforms’ impact at a macro-level.
Funded through a joint grant by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Commercial Scorecard is based on an independent review of data from commercial health plans that collectively insured 4.6 million New Jerseyans (approximately 72% of the commercially-insured lives) in 2016, the year on which the Commercial Scorecard bases its findings. The Medicaid Scorecard is based on an independent review of data from Managed Care Organizations that collectively insured 1.6 million New Jerseyans (approximately 92% of the Medicaid-insured lives) in 2016, the year on which the Scorecard bases its findings.
The New Jersey Scorecards, released in conjunction with the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute as local sponsor of the effort, provide baseline information for New Jersey health care stakeholders to utilize in their work towards a more efficient and value-oriented health care system.
Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI)
The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI), an independent, non-profit research institute, is funded in part by four health insurance companies that contribute claims data in support of HCCI’s mission to enable a better understanding of the true drivers of increasing health care costs among thought leaders, policymakers and other health care decision-makers, and the general public. The HCCI data covers employee-sponsored insurance from four leading insurers: United Health Group, Aetna, Humana, and Kaiser Permanente.
We asked HCCI to explore what’s happening in New Jersey. Here, the data covers 35 percent of people covered by their employers. HCCI adjusts the data so the population examined reflects the larger population of all people in New Jersey insured by their employers. The data shows the main driver in rising employer sponsored health care spending has been the jump in prices. We now spend 17.9 percent of our gross domestic product on health care — twice what we spent in 1980. The National Health Expenditure Projections predict the percentage will be 19.7 by 2026.
We’re thankful to HCCI for preparing this data, and I urge all of our members to explore the HCCI charts and share your own insight with us.