Knowledge Center

2019 AHRMM CQO Report: The Power of Clinical Integration  Overview:  The CQO Task Force identified six health care organizations with case studies demonstrating the evolution of CQO and the expanding role of supply chain in meeting the needs of the ever-changing health care environment. These stories are contained within this report.

The AHRMM Cost, Quality, and Outcomes (CQO) Movement was launched in 2013 to advance the role of the health care supply chain in delivering better quality care at a more affordable cost and in a manner that delivers the highest value to patients. The CQO Movement explores the inter-relationships between cost, quality, and outcomes (as defined below) as opposed to the more historic view in which these factors were considered separately, often by different functions within the hospital environment, e.g., clinical, financial, etc.

Most of us have heard the term “population health” but is it simply a healthcare buzzword or a program that can truly drive better costs, quality, and outcomes? AHRMM assembled a task force comprised of experts in the fields of healthcare supply chain, finance, and value analysis to examine the current population health management landscape in order to determine what impact these programs are having on the physical and behavioral health of people and the financial health of hospitals, health systems, and other health-related community organizations.

As the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) Triple Aim continues to be adopted by hospitals and health systems as a framework for implementing major improvements, AHRMM has established a clear and important connection between AHRMM’s Cost, Quality, and Outcomes (CQO) Movement and the goals of the Triple Aim.

In 2016, AHRMM convened the AHRMM CQO Task Force, a group of healthcare leaders collaborating to identify real world examples of supply chain’s alignment with the Triple Aim. The IHI Triple Aim framework was developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Massachusetts to describe an approach to optimizing health system performance (www.ihi.org).

In 2015, AHRMM convened the AHRMM Thought Leader Task Force, an exploratory group tasked with uncovering applications of the Cost, Quality, and Outcomes (CQO) Movement across the healthcare field. The Task Force objectives were developed based on recommendations from the first ever Thought Leader Summit on CQO held at the 2014 AHRMM Conference and Exhibition.

In 2001 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published