HQA Program Overview
Hospital Quality Alliance: Improving Care through Information
The Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) is a public-private collaboration that represents diverse stakeholders including hospitals, health professionals, government agencies, quality experts, purchasers, and consumer groups. The HQA is committed to making meaningful, relevant, and easily understood information about hospital performance accessible to the public and to informing and encouraging efforts to improve quality. The HQA believes that the accessibility and use of performance information will spur positive changes in health care delivery. A cornerstone of its collaboration is Hospital Compare (www.HospitalCompare.hhs.gov), which publicly reports hospital performance in a consistent, unified manner to ensure the availability of credible information about the care delivered in the nation’s hospitals.
Quality performance information collected from the more than 4,000 participating hospitals is reported on Hospital Compare, a website hosted by the Department of Health & Human Services.
The American Hospital Association (AHA); the Federation of American Hospitals (FAH); and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), which launched HQA in 2002, continue to work closely with CMS and other stakeholders in this initiative.
To participate in the HQA initiative, a hospital must complete and forward the Pledge of Participation Form to its Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) contact. Results for the current HQA hospital quality measures can be viewed on Hospital Compare.
For more information regarding the HQA initiative, see HQA Overview: Data Collection, Transmission and Reporting, PDF, and Important Dates and Deadlines, PDF.