The Commonwealth Fund named Vermont as one of the top ranking states for improving health care access, quality, outcomes and lowering costs in the five years preceding implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s major coverage provisions.
Aiming Higher: Results from a Scorecard on State Health System Performance, 2014 ranks the health systems of every state and the District of Columbia based on 42 health care measures, 34 of which are used to reveal trends between 2007 and 2011–12. Vermont ranked second in the scorecard, the same rank it attained in the previous scorecard.
Vermont and other top ranking states “…lead the nation across most dimensions of care, and have done so over time,” says the report. “Their consistently high performance may be the result of their willingness and wherewithal to address health system change with focused initiatives spanning the public and private sectors.”
Bea Grause, President and CEO of the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (VAHHS) confirms the value of this approach.
“Cultivating and sustaining partnerships between public and private stakeholders has been key to Vermont’s health care reform progress,” says Grause. “Vermont clearly has a very good health care system today and efforts to improve it are headed in the right direction.”
Compared to other states, Vermont has:
- The highest percentage of children with a medical home;
- The highest percentage of children with medical and dental care preventive visits,
- The fifth lowest percentage of uninsured adults and children; and
- The fourth lowest percentage of adults who went without care because of cost.
The report cites Vermont as a national leader for their efforts. “Vermont, ranked second overall in 2014 and consistently near the top in previous years, has a history of enacting policies that promote better performance. A national leader in guaranteeing access to care and investing in primary care, the state most recently established a “blueprint for health” that emphasizes disease prevention, chronic disease management, and care coordination through a community-based medical home model.”
“Health care reform is a journey, and a difficult one at that,” says Grause. “These reports are important guideposts for staying the course along the way.”
Source: VAHHS 4.30.2014. The Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems works to achieve a financially sustainable, high quality, health care system accessible and affordable for all Vermonters. For more information, visit www.vahhs.org.