What is a "Value Exchange"?

A “Value Exchange” is a multi-stakeholder organization that has taken clear action in its community to convene industry stakeholders and advance the four cornerstones of Value-Driven Health Care.

In February 2008 U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Secretary, Mike Leavitt, recognized 14 communities across the nation with a special federal distinction for their strong commitment to improving quality and value in health care.

The Secretary designated these partnerships of providers, employers, insurers, and consumers as the country’s first Chartered Value Exchanges (CVE) for their work to implement cutting-edge, collaborative methods to transform health care at the local level.

Qualities of a stake-holder group recognized as a Value Exchange include:

  • Being recognized by HHS as a Community Leader;
  • Active engagement with critical stakeholders in the community;
  • Having non-profit organization status, with staff or consultant expertise;
  • Demonstrated financial sustainability;
  • Facilitating the collection of provider-level measurements across the six Institute Of Medicine performance domains (safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable, patient-centered care);
  • Using (or promoting the use of) performance measures for:
    • Public reporting of costs and consumer assessments
    • Rewarding and fostering better performance
    • Improvement by providers
    • Use of interoperable health information technologies
  • Fostering collaboration across multiple stakeholders and serving as a hub for sharing information and dialogue;
  • Supporting knowledge transfer and sharing lessons learned
  • Conducting ongoing evaluation and improvement of efforts
  • Using national provider performance measures effectively

Chartered Value Exchanges are eligible to participate in a nation-wide Learning Network that is sponsored and maintained by HHS’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The Learning Network provides access to expert faculty, lessons about successful quality improvement, and consumer reporting. In addition, tools available will help with relationship management, and coalition building.