Comagine Health Press Releases

Qualis Health Will Recognize Five Washington Organizations for Improvements in Healthcare

Seattle, WA - Qualis Health, one of the nation's leading population health management organizations, will recognize five healthcare organizations from across the state of Washington for their achievements in improving healthcare quality and outcomes. The award recipients will be recognized during a ceremony at the 2018 Northwest Patient Safety Conference on May 1, 2018. John Vassall, MD, Physician Executive of Quality and Safety for Qualis Health, will present the awards.

“Our changing healthcare landscape requires increasingly vigorous efforts to improve healthcare delivery and health outcomes in Washington State and across the nation,” said Vassall. “Data-driven quality improvement initiatives increase patient safety, reduce healthcare disparities, and engage patients and families. The Qualis Health Awards of Excellence in Healthcare Quality celebrate organizations…

Salt Lake City and Seattle - The governing boards of HealthInsight and Qualis Health have approved a formal agreement to merge the two organizations and their operations across the U.S., as anticipated since the February announcement of their intention to merge. The merger is final and effective today.

The new, merged organization builds on the successes, strengths and cultures of both companies. HealthInsight and Qualis Health will continue to use their current operational names until the organization introduces a new corporate brand later this year.

The merged organization’s governing board includes equal representation of HealthInsight and Qualis Health, supplemented by new members previously not affiliated with either company. Hugh Straley, MD, formerly Chair of the Qualis Health board, has been named as inaugural Chair of the new board. Dr. Straley stated, “The combined expertise and experience of the new organization is powerful, with…

Qualis Health Will Recognize Four Idaho Organizations for Improvements in Healthcare

Boise, ID - Qualis Health, one of the nation's leading population health management organizations, will recognize four healthcare organizations from across the state of Idaho for their achievements in improving healthcare quality and outcomes. The award recipients will be recognized during a ceremony at the Idaho Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Conference on April 19 in Boise, Idaho. Linda Rowe, Executive Director of Qualis Health, will present the awards.

“Our changing healthcare landscape requires increasingly vigorous efforts to improve healthcare delivery and health outcomes in Idaho and across the nation. The Qualis Health Idaho Quality Awards celebrate organizations that have transformed healthcare delivery for their communities—making a real difference for their patients and their families,” said Rowe. “Their achievements exemplify progress towards critical…

April 9, 2018, Salt Lake City — HealthInsight released Utah’s first public report on the quality of local primary care, that combines Medicare and commercial claims data, significantly expanding the information consumers can access about the quality of care in Utah. Published on HealthInsight’s website at https://healthinsight.org/rankings/utah-diabetes-screening, the report enables Utahns to compare comprehensive diabetes care across the state’s designated small areas (http://www.health.utah.gov/opha/IBIShelp/sarea/UtahSmallAreaInfo.pdf).

The report includes data provided by Medicare through the Qualified Entity Certification Program. The new Medicare data permitted Utah to combine commercial claims data from our All Payer Claims Database and Medicare Fee-for-Service…

Beery brings more than three decades of healthcare industry experience

Seattle, WA - Qualis Health, one of the nation’s leading population health management organizations, today announced that David Beery, MA, has joined the company as Vice President of Care Management. Beery brings more than three decades of care management and healthcare administration experience to Qualis Health. His background includes leadership roles at organizations such as Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington (formerly Group Health Cooperative) and Beacon Health Options (formerly ValueOptions).

“I’ve been hearing good things about Qualis Health for years,” said Beery. “It’s a leading industry organization, providing high-quality and cost-effective services based on best practices. I’m excited to bring my years of managed care experience to Qualis Health so that together we can overcome the challenges presented by the ever-changing healthcare industry.”

Beery oversees…

New Health Care Cost Comparison Shows How Pricing and Resource Use Impact Oregon and Utah’s Cost of Health Care

Salt Lake City — Differences in the cost of health care in five states are largely driven by local patterns of resource use and pricing, according to a report released by the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI), a national nonprofit representing regional health improvement collaboratives (RHICs) and state partners working to achieve better, more affordable health care.

Healthcare Affordability: Untangling Cost Drivers, is NRHI’s second annual report comparing the total cost of care in various U.S. regions. Like other recent studies, Untangling Cost Drivers finds that health care costs vary widely between…

Salt Lake City and Seattle—The governing boards of HealthInsight and Qualis Health have executed a letter of intent to merge the two organizations and their operations across the U.S., seeking to achieve greater scale and synergy in improving population health and enhancing the quality and value of health care.

Both HealthInsight and Qualis Health have been engaged in health care quality consulting and providing quality improvement services for more than 40 years. Currently they contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as well as Medicaid and other agencies in multiple states. Both organizations maintain a diverse portfolio of additional public- and private-sector business operations across the U.S. The new merged organization will employ more than 500 people, with anticipated annual revenues of over $80 million.

HealthInsight and Qualis Health are roughly comparable in size and complementary in scope of operations. They…

Our very own Pat Montoya has been named one of New Mexico’s Women of Influence by Albuquerque Business First. Pat serves as the executive director for the New Mexico Coalition for Healthcare Value and the director of government relations for HealthInsight New Mexico.

 Pat was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of New Mexico (UNM) and also obtained her master’s degree in public administration/health administration from UNM. After graduation from nursing school, she worked in pediatrics and as a school nurse in the Albuquerque Public Schools.  In working to help students and their families, she recognized problems in our school health system and began lobbying for change at the school board level and at the New Mexico Legislature.

When the state was faced with a shortage of health care professionals, she and some nurse colleagues lobbied in Santa Fe to expand the Nurse Practice Act,…

Salt Lake City — HealthInsight, a nonprofit, community-based organization dedicated to improving health and health care, has received a Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to support a project to enhance the integration of family caregivers into the health care of elders in Utah.

This work will be carried out by Christie North, MBA, Creating Quality, and Debra Scammon, PhD, Emma Eccles Jones Professor of Marketing, David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah. The project will focus on developing best practices for integrating family caregivers into the care teams of primary care providers for elderly patients with chronic conditions.

North and Scammon, both family caregivers themselves, want to help reduce the burdens on family caregivers who are relied upon to perform a variety of medical care tasks without adequate training. By partnering together, primary care providers and family…

Salt Lake City, Utah —HealthInsight’s Nevada and New Mexico affiliates, along with three other organizations, have been selected by the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI) to join its groundbreaking project that measures and reports on the total cost of health care (Total Cost of Care or TCoC) in regions across the nation.

NRHI is a national organization of regional health improvement collaboratives working to transform the U.S. health care system. The project is part of NRHI’s Getting to Affordability initiative, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and seeks to answer such critical questions as: What does health care cost in my community? Why does health care cost more in some places than others? and What’s driving the differences in costs for the same services or procedures?

HealthInsight Nevada, HealthInsight New Mexico, the California Healthcare Performance Information System…