Minnesota’s health care model is admired across the United States as an efficient, high quality system. There are many reasons for this and one important component is that Minnesotans work together toward common goals.

Collaboration among the health plans, hospitals and clinics, and the State of Minnesota has resulted in a system which ranks high in quality and access and low in cost. Our common goal is to improve the health of Minnesotans while making our health care system more efficient. Through the Minnesota Council of Health Plans (Council) our state’s seven health plan companies work to improve the health of all Minnesotans. These companies are locally based, community-focused nonprofit organizations serving more than 4.3 million enrollees. At the Council we work to ensure affordable coverage and quality care by embracing three strategies to carry out our work—policy development, industry leadership, and collaboration.

Collaboration is a key component of Minnesota’s success because it improves the health of our population, improves health care delivery, improves access to care, and reduces long-term health care costs. This article provides some highlights of how collaboration drives health system improvements across our state in the areas of transparency and payment reform, improving quality, administrative simplification, community health and prevention, and government health care programs.

Transparency and Payment Reform

MN Community Measurement (MNCM). MNCM is the leading health care quality public reporting organization in Minnesota. Its mission is to accelerate the improvement of health by publicly reporting quality information. After all, you cannot improve what you don’t measure and you cannot move a payment system toward paying for value if you do not have outcome-based data.

Launched by the Council and Minnesota Medical Association (MMA), MNCM is driving health care systems improvement. Today the Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA) and the state of Minnesota are also MNCM partners. The nonprofit organization is governed by a board of directors, with members representing employers, consumers, payers, and providers. Data is provided by health plans as well as directly from more than 300 medical clinics.

Reports provide clinic level, outcome-based quality results on health conditions such as diabetes, vascular disease, depression, ADHD, colds, sore throats, COPD, bronchitis, and asthma. Screenings included are colorectal, breast and cervical cancer, and chlamydia infection. MNCM also reports on other aspects of high quality care such as the experience of patients and the use of health information technology. Employers and health plans use these results to reward clinics and medical groups that are providing superior value.