New Initiative Urges Patients to Understand Health Care Quality

This month the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and several partners are joining forces in an effort to get consumers engaged in learning about what it means to have high quality health care. The Care About Your Care initiative, launched Sept. 1, is designed to help consumers find high quality care in their communities using publicly available information.

“Even though more information about health care quality is available than ever before, few people use that information to make decisions about their care, or even ask doctors and nurses all the questions they have. With the health and well-being of ourselves and our loved ones at stake, we should all be seeking the best care possible,” said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., president and CEO of RWJF in a press release. “That’s why we are pleased to have other national partners stand with us as we announce the Care About Your Care effort. Together we will urge Americans to learn what quality health care is, look for the right care for themselves and their families, and live better by engaging more closely in their own health care.”

The initiative includes a new website  and Twitter outreach under the #yourcare hashtag to share information about what it means to receive quality health care, and how to partner with doctors and nurses to receive it. Participants in the project include U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz and other health care organizations.