The Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) is a nonprofit health policy resource center dedicated to improving the quality and cost effectiveness of health care services for low-income populations and people with chronic illnesses and disabilities. CHCS works directly with states and federal agencies, health plans, and providers to develop innovative programs that better serve people with complex and high-cost health care needs.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) seeks to ensure effective, up-to-date health care coverage and to promote quality care for beneficiaries. Ultimately, CMS is working to transform and modernize the health care system.

Clinical Practice Guidelines are a set of systematically developed statements, usually based on scientific evidence, that help physicians and their patients make decisions about appropriate health care for specific medical conditions. Clinical practice guidelines briefly identify and evaluate the most current information about prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, therapy, risk/benefit and cost effectiveness.

Consumer Engagement is the situation in which consumers take an active role in their own health care, from understanding their own conditions and available treatments, to seeking out and making decisions based on information about the performance of health care providers.

Core Measures are specific clinical measures that, when viewed together, permit a robust assessment of the quality of care provided in a given focus area, such as acute myocardial infarction (AMI). (Copyright 2009 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Used with permission form the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey.)

An ability to understand and relate to others in a trustworthy manner, with respect for individual and cultural differences. Cultural competence is critical to healthcare. For example, differences in language can hinder or even prevent communication between a patient and physician. In other cases, cultural/educational background of the provider may conflict with deeply held patient beliefs about managing illness, disease, and treatment. In some cultures, the diagnosis of a terminal illness is never provided to the patient. In contrast, the idea of withholding medical information differs from US cultural ideas about self-determination and also, with many hospital policies surrounding patient rights. Culturally competent healthcare providers acknowledge and respect differences and take steps to ensure that they do not compromise the health care their patients receive. (Source: DiversityRX)