May 14, 2018

The High Value Practice Academic Alliance (HVPAA), led by Johns Hopkins Medicine, has collaborated with the Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET), the research, education and implementation science affiliate of the American Hospital Association (AHA), to host and direct the HVPAA’s annual High Value Health Care Conference on Sept. 21-23 at the Baltimore Convention Center. This collaboration is expected to be the first step in a pilot initiative to improve health care value on a national scale by increasing quality while reducing patients’ cost of care.

“Forging a relationship with HRET will dramatically improve HVPAA’s ability to engage medical providers across the country as we work together to deliver measurable improvements in health care value,” said Pamela Johnson, M.D., associate professor, vice chair of quality and safety in the Department of Radiology and Radiological Science at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and physician lead of the Johns Hopkins Health System High Value Care Committee.

The HVPAA, a consortium of more than 85 academic medical centers in the United States and Canada, was created in 2016 by Johnson and Roy Ziegelstein, M.D., vice dean for education at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Its mission is to serve as a national forum for academic institutions to collaborate on quality improvement, education and research related to high value care and engage their trainees in this work.

In addition to co-directing the conference, the HVPAA will support dissemination of value-based performance improvement work across the AHA, which currently includes more than 5,000 hospitals and medical centers in the United States.

“This collaboration provides a unique opportunity to leverage and build on the outstanding clinical expertise of HVPAA’s faculty leaders to further HRET’s work in high-reliability care through programs like our Hospital Improvement and Innovation Network,” says Jay Bhatt, D.O., president of HRET and chief medical officer of the AHA. “Together we will curate and implement value-improvement tools and resources across HRET’s high-reliability practice areas.”

Founded by the AHA in 1944, HRET is transforming health care through quality research and education. HRET works with health care organizations across the continuum of care to find real solutions that address the rapid changes and challenges in health care and improve people’s lives.