08 Jul 2026
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MVC In-Person Networking Event: Continuing the Conversation – A Networking Dinner on System-Level Quality Metrics

MVC In-Person Networking Event: Continuing the Conversation – A Networking Dinner on System-Level Quality Metrics

July 8, 2026 | Comments Closed | , ,

On June 17, the Michigan Value Collaborative (MVC) welcomed 18 quality leaders representing 16 hospitals across six health systems for an evening of networking and collaborative discussion focused on the future of system-level quality improvement. The event built upon conversations from MVC’s spring collaborative-wide meeting, where participants identified opportunities and goals for measuring quality improvement within and across multi-hospital systems.

The in-person networking dinner provided an opportunity to further engage participants in hands-on activities designed to gather feedback, encourage peer learning, and refine ideas for future MVC reporting and metric design.

Choosing the Right Visualization

The evening began with an interactive exercise focused on data visualization. Participants were greeted by three mock-ups of system-level metric visualizations and prompted to vote on the metric they believed would be most useful to support quality improvement.

Photograph of a silent auction setup with informational signs displayed on a black tablecloth in a well-lit room with wooden floors and brick walls. Signs include a "SYSTEM-LEVEL METRIC" poster with blue and yellow design elements and bar charts showing data trends, while an MVC team member stands in the background near a window.

Pictured above is MVC Project Manager Emily Woltmann, PhD, MSW, standing alongside a display table at MVC’s June 2026 networking dinner

The group overwhelmingly preferred a visualization displaying consistency among hospitals within a health system for a given metric (Figure 1). Discussions with participants revealed that this approach would allow system leaders to quickly identify opportunities for shared learning, recognize high-performing hospitals, and prioritize improvement efforts where variation exists. This reinforced the importance placed on balancing meaningful information with a metric that supports action, as shared during the preceding spring collaborative-wide meeting breakout activity.

Figure 1. System-Level Metric Visualization Mock-Ups

A set of three infographic panels presenting different healthcare measurement ideas: system consistency, access, and site of care rationalization. Each panel includes bar charts with labeled axes and brief explanatory text highlighting variation between hospitals, excess travel distance, and minimum procedure thresholds for complex surgery.

Speed Networking Sparks Perspective

Following dinner, attendees participated in a “speed dating” style networking activity designed to generate diverse perspectives on system-level quality improvement reporting. Each participant received a customized deck of discussion prompt cards covering topics such as preferred benchmarking approaches, desired report features, future quality priorities, and characteristics of an ideal system-level metric (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Sample of Speed Networking Prompt Cards 1-3

Three discussion cards with blue borders and headings labeled "Discussion Card" contain questions and prompts for partner conversations. Each card includes fill-in-the-blank spaces for partner names, multiple-choice or open-ended questions about system comparisons, metric layers, and improvement goals, with checkboxes and lines for written responses.

Every five minutes participants paired with a new colleague, selected a new discussion card, and explored one of the prompts with their partner before rotating again. By the end of the activity, each attendee had connected with six different peers, allowing them to hear perspectives from hospitals and health systems across Michigan while also expanding their professional network.

Photograph of a group of people dining and networking in a restaurant with wooden floors and large windows providing natural light. The setting features dark blue walls, black chairs, and tables with food and drinks, capturing a casual social gathering atmosphere.

Pictured above is a group of healthcare quality leaders at MVC’s June 2026 networking dinner.

The prompt cards encouraged participants to think creatively about questions such as:

  • Should system-level reports compare hospitals with: other hospitals in a multi-hospital system, systems to other systems, or statewide benchmarks?
  • What stratifications would provide the greatest insight into performance variation?
  • What quality outcomes should become the next system-wide priority?
  • What information would make a system-level report most actionable?

These one-on-one conversations generated thoughtful discussion around identifying meaningful measures, balancing accountability with collaboration, and designing reports that support improvement across diverse organizations.

Wrap Up: Identifying Common Themes

The evening concluded with a facilitated group discussion where participants were encouraged to think about recurring themes from their conversations with peers.

Throughout the event, attendees emphasized the value of reports that are easy to interpret, highlight meaningful variation within multi-hospital systems, and provide actionable information. Participants also discussed the importance of thoughtful benchmarking, meaningful risk adjustment, and opportunities to drill down into data to better understand differences in performance. One common theme noted was the continued importance of understanding the variation and impact of non-medical drivers of health.

Perhaps equally valuable was the opportunity this event offered to strengthen relationships among quality leaders from across the state. By encouraging diverse conversations throughout the evening, participants exchanged ideas and made connections with peers they may not have otherwise met, creating new networks that extend across health systems.

One attendee shared:

“It was really nice and planned well. The activity was well thought out and engaging. I think I talked to almost everyone and there was movement. I didn’t know or realize that we could attend these sessions in other regions, and I was happy to connect with other hospitals in attendance…I felt it was worth the drive and time. I appreciate [MVC] planning and hosting it.”

The ideas generated during this networking event will help inform future system-level reporting and metric development within the MVC Coordinating Center. MVC looks forward to hosting additional networking events in the future to further increase collaboration and connection among its members. The next networking opportunity will be offered as an in-person dinner on Oct. 8, the evening before MVC’s fall collaborative-wide meeting. Registration is forthcoming.

01 Jul 2026
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MVC June Workgroups Highlight Cardiac Rehab Telehealth & Using AI for Physician Feedback and QI in the ED

MVC June Workgroups Highlight Cardiac Rehab Telehealth & Using AI for Physician Feedback and QI in the ED

July 1, 2026 | Comments Closed | , , , , , ,

In June, the Michigan Value Collaborative (MVC) hosted two virtual workgroup presentations. The first was a cardiac rehabilitation (CR) workgroup that doubled as a Michigan Cardiac Rehab network (MiCR) telehealth forum focused on virtual group CR programming with a live action demonstration. The second workgroup, health in action, focused on how artificial intelligence (AI) can be utilized to improve follow-up care for patients. The MVC Coordinating Center hosts workgroup presentations once or twice per month, covering a variety of topics including CR, post-discharge follow-up, sepsis, rural health, preoperative testing, and health in action.

Cardiac Rehab – MiCR Telehealth Forum

MVC and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium (BMC2) co-lead MiCR, an initiative to improve CR utilization across Michigan. In April, MiCR launched a new virtual forum series to help programs implement and sustain telehealth services under recently extended Medicare reimbursement policies. MVC’s June workgroup hosted the second MiCR telehealth forum in the series, this time featuring a demonstration of group virtual CR by Henry Ford Health’s Steven Keteyian, PhD, Director of Cardiac Rehabilitation & Preventive Cardiology, and Robert Berry, MS, ACSM-CEP FAACVPR, Clinical Coordinator for Cardiac Rehabilitation. The demonstration was followed by a discussion led by MiCR’s Co-Directors, Jessica Golbus, MD, MS, and Mike Thompson, PhD, MPH.

Telehealth Group Example

The workgroup began with a live mock CR telehealth session led by Berry and Keteyian. Three actors representing patients (played by MVC’s Jessie Souva, MSN, RN, C-ONQS; Emily Woltmann, PhD, MSW; and Rachel Folk, MHA) were guided through a simulated telehealth group CR session.

After presenter introductions, Berry began the group CR class greeting the patient actors, who each represented a specific patient profile and common cardiac condition (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Patient Profiles for Cardiac Rehabilitation Mock Session

Illustration featuring three female characters representing patients with heart conditions, each accompanied by brief medical histories and personal details. Key information includes ages, specific diagnoses like myocardial infarction, coronary artery bypass surgery, and chronic heart failure, along with lifestyle notes and emotional states, presented with distinct colors and icons for clarity.

To begin the session, Berry checked in with each patient on the Zoom session to document the type of exercise or equipment they would be using. As Figure 2 shows, the group session looked similar to a Zoom meeting with all patients exercising simultaneously from locations they established with their instructor in advance. Each patient confirmed their exercise modality, weight, and heart rate as they engaged in their chosen activity. Throughout the exercise process, patients were asked questions about how the exercise was feeling and whether it was causing any pain or discomfort. If a patient was having symptoms, Berry would follow up with more specific questions to help pinpoint the problem area and would give advice for either modifying the exercise, utilizing intentional breathing techniques, or taking a break.

Figure 2. Screenshot of Mock Telehealth CR Session

Screen capture showing what a virtual cardiac rehabilitation group session looks like. Shows three female participants and one clinical professional.

The patients had an opportunity to ask Berry follow-up questions before the end of the session such as:

  1. How will I know when it’s safe to push harder?
  2. Should I continue with CR exercises if my energy level is low today?
  3. When/how do I share my tracked vitals and symptoms with my providers?
  4. How do I get in touch with you between sessions?
  5. Can I still participate in virtual sessions if I’m at my home in Florida?

Following the live demonstration, Golbus and Thompson led participants in a question-and-answer discussion that further clarified how virtual and telehealth CR programs can work. Keteyian and Berry shared that patients must be at their home address for certain payers (Medicare/Medicaid), but patients with other insurance such as Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) can be at any location within the state of Michigan.

Some attendees wondered about confidentiality considerations during the group session. Henry Ford Health said their programming has not required participants to sign an additional Health Information Portability Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) release form; however, they do remind patients to be aware of what information they share in the presence of others during the group session. For people who may be uncomfortable sharing personal information such as weight, different wording can be used. For example, “has your weight changed since your last visit?”

For patients who are unsure about participating in a virtual setting, Keteyian pointed out that they often have the patient come into the facility for the first session to participate as if they were at home in a virtual environment. This often alleviates any concerns about fully participating in a telehealth setting in the future. For those patients who do not have exercise equipment at home, Berry shared that patients can usually find some form of exercise equipment to borrow from a family member, church, or neighbor, or will choose to walk during their session.

A poll of participants showed the current state of CR programming for sites represented at the forum (Figure 3-4), with most sites indicating an interest in exploring both group and individual telehealth CR.

Figure 3. Polling Question: What format of virtual CR is your site considering?

Polling bar chart showing frequency of four formats of virtual cardiac rehab being utilized: Both, Group, Individual, and Neither. Both has highest value near 19, followed by Neither at 13, Group at 8, and Individual at 7, with vertical axis ranging from 0 to 20.

Figure 4. Polling Question: What best describes your site's status on starting a virtual CR program?

Pie chart displays stages of virtual cardiac rehabilitation (CR) implementation among organizations. Largest segment (21) represents organizations considering virtual CR, followed by 12 having conversations with staff or leadership, and smaller segments of 3 each for program development and piloting or delivering virtual CR, with color-coded legend for clarity.

According to the polls, most workgroup participants are still considering CR program development and starting to have conversations with staff and leadership. The MiCR team encouraged participants to take these poll questions back to their teams and leadership to inspire discussion on developing a hybrid or telehealth CR program.

MiCR Telehealth Virtual Forum: June 9, 2026

Health in Action Workgroup – Michigan Medicine

MVC was joined by the University of Michigan’s Alexander Janke, MD, MHS, MSc, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, and Florian Schmitzberger, MD, MS, Clinical Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, for the health in action workgroup. Their presentation focused on how AI can be used for clinical feedback and quality improvement workflows in various healthcare settings.

Janke shared that emergency clinicians often make high-stakes clinical decisions when treating patients but then have limited feedback on how their patients do as they move through their care pathway. The rapid patient traffic through the emergency department (ED) continuously pulls these providers into new patient cases, preventing them from having the time to manually review past patient charts. A feedback loop project was intended to help address practice variation, missed learning opportunities, and potential quality blind spots. In preparation for the launch of the project, Michigan Medicine sought approval from the institutional review board (IRB), utilized a large language model (LLM) that is HIPAA compliant, and completed a health information technology services review. They also gathered clinical intelligence committee input, Epic database integration support, and input from the division of clinical informatics.

Methods

Previous approaches to reviewing patient progress included manual chart reviews (time consuming), self-imposed reminders via Epic’s in-basket messaging system, or by hearing about a patient’s follow-up by word-of-mouth. With the introduction of AI as a feedback tool, clinicians would have access to LLMs that can read charts faster than a human reviewer, create tailored summaries for the emergency medicine context, and provide another means for learning by supporting clinicians within their limited time. The AI feedback process follows this flow:

  1. Flag the case – A clinician marks a patient of interest during the shift via a health education research (HER)-integrated workflow
  2. Wait – A specified time later—three to 14 days—the platform queries downstream documentation
  3. AI summary – The University of Michigan generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) Toolkit (HIPAA-compliant LLM) generates a tailored clinical summary with a structured prompt
  4. Deliver – An email arrives in the clinician’s institutional inbox and includes a patient identifier for recall, an emergency medicine-focused summary, and answers to any free-text questions
  5. Reflect – The clinician reviews, learns from the outcome, and adjusts future practice enabling the adaptive learning cycle

The process begins with the provider flagging a patient case they would like educational feedback on in the future. Flagging a case is done in the “Disposition View” of the clinician decision tree in Epic (Figure 5). After the waiting period of the patient progressing through levels of care and finally discharging from the hospital, the HIPAA compliant UM GPT will send the provider a summary directly to their institutional email.

Figure 5. Disposition View in Epic MyChart

Screenshot of a medical software interface showing a disposition view with color-coded task categories and a follow-up order section. Tasks include work/school/sport excuses and patient portal letters in green and blue boxes, with a follow-up question form on the right allowing email summary timing selection and additional patient questions.

To validate that the AI summary was providing impactful and meaningful patient information, Schmitzberger and Janke developed a structured validation procedure for 200 AI-generated case summaries measuring for accuracy, conciseness, helpfulness, and completeness. The initial scoring showed that the AI summaries were quite accurate and helpful (Figure 6). This early positive feedback has prompted continued work on developing the use of this program in other areas of the institution.

Figure 6. Structured Validation of 200 AI-Generated Case Summaries

A table displays four performance metrics for validation of 200 AI-generated case summaries with scores out of 5: Accuracy (4.79), Conciseness (4.86), Helpfulness (4.60), and Completeness (4.28). Each metric is labeled in red text below the blue numerical scores.

Results

Currently the program includes 170+ unique users including faculty, residents, and physician assistants, who are averaging approximately 40 – 70 requests each week, and 30+ power users (a clinical or other staff member who maximizes Epic electronic health record (EHR) efficiency using advanced tools and navigation).

The top three case follow up themes for requested summaries included diagnosis/etiology (~40%), disposition/course/ICU (~17%), and test/imaging results (~10%). With strong approval in the emergency department and endorsement from other committees, the goal is to expand this feedback program to multiple areas within the institution.

Next Steps & Discussion

Janke presented two pathways in which they would like to proceed with expanding the AI feedback program. The first would be horizontal scaling across the institution, including integration into the graduate medical education program for internal medicine/hospitalist care. Second, they would like to apply their approach to a quality measure from the Michigan Emergency Department Improvement Collaborative (MEDIC).

The presenters addressed participant questions about sharing learnings between providers, patient record privacy, and potential applications in other areas like pediatric care and fall prevention, with participants suggesting connections with the Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety Consortium (HMS) metrics and exploring CEUs as incentives for provider participation.

MVC Health in Action Workgroup: June 25, 2026

MVC welcomes workgroup presenters from across Michigan to share their expertise, success stories, initiatives, and solution-focused ideas with MVC members. Please reach out to us by email if you are interested in being a workgroup presenter or submit a presentation proposal here.

24 Jun 2026
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MVC Thanks Presenters from the First Half of 2026

MVC Thanks Presenters from the First Half of 2026

June 24, 2026 | Comments Closed | , , ,

The MVC Coordinating Center wishes to express its heartfelt appreciation for the 39 generous healthcare professionals who stepped forward to present during MVC’s first and second quarter virtual workgroups, spring collaborative-wide meeting, and Michigan Cardiac Rehabilitation network (MiCR) virtual forums on telehealth rehabilitation. The MVC Coordinating Center would not be able to deliver the variety of high-quality educational opportunities without the contribution of these dedicated volunteer presenters. We know that MVC’s members and partners have many demands on their time from within their own organizations and beyond. Nonetheless, these 39 guest speakers shared their data, innovative approaches, best practices, and insights to support our shared goals of peer learning and high-value care delivery for Michigan patients. We appreciate you contributing in this important way. You DO make a difference!

Join us in giving these folks a well-deserved round of applause:

Cardiac Rehab Workgroup

  • Robert Berry, MS, ACSM-CEP, FAACVPR, Clinical Coordinator Cardiac Rehabilitation, Henry Ford Health Henry Ford Hospital
  • Zach Johnson, BS, ACSM-CEP, Lead Exercise Physiologist for Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehab Programs, Corewell Health
  • Steven Keteyian, PhD, Bioscientific Clinical Staff, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Henry Ford Health Henry Ford Hospital
  • Laura Meiste, RN, BSN, Manager of Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehab, Holland Hospital
  • Greg Scharf, BS, CEP, CCRP, Cardiopulmonary Rehab System Manager, MyMichigan Health
  • Mike Thompson, PhD, FAHA Associate Professor of Cardiac Surgery, Michigan Medicine
  • Tyelor Wymer, CEP, BS, Cardiology Supervisor, University of Michigan Health-Sparrow

Health in Action Workgroup

  • Jennifer Hengy, BSN, RN, Internal Quality Improvement Specialist Sr., Corewell Health Farmington Hills
  • Alexander Janke, MD, MHS, MSc, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan
  • Eugene Laveroni, MD, Chief of Surgery, Corewell Health Farmington Hills
  • Florian Schmitzberger, MD, MS, Clinical Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan
  • Leslie Smith, RPh, JD, BCPS, BCIDP, Clinical Pharmacist Specialist, Corewell Health Farmington Hills

Post-Discharge Follow-Up Workgroup

  • Steven Frazier, BA, RN, ACM-RN, Director of Quality and Patient Safety Post-Acute, MyMichigan Health System
  • John Hagan, DO, Medical Director - Care Coordinating Center, MyMichigan Health System

Rural Health Workgroup

  • Heather Baumeister, BSN, RN, CRHCP, Director of Healthcare Practices, McKenzie Health System

Sepsis Workgroup

  • Tami Garcia, MSN, RN, Sepsis Process Lead, Michigan Medicine
  • Carly Redstone, MSN, RN, Sepsis Coordinator, Michigan Medicine

Spring Collaborative-Wide Meeting Panelists

  • Alex Callaway, MBA, CPHQ, CPPS, Regional Quality Director, Munson Health System
  • Emily Nerreter, MBA, CPC, CRC, Pay for Performance & Registries Manager, Henry Ford Health System
  • Stephanie Pins-Schallip, MSA, CPHQ, Director of Value Analysis & Enhancement, MyMichigan Health

Spring Collaborative-Wide Meeting Breakout Session Speakers

  • Belinda Dokic, CPhT, BA, MBA, Post-Acute Care Manager, Trinity Health Alliance of Michigan
  • Cindy Ingersoll, RN, BSN, CCM, Post-Acute Care Manager, Trinity Health Alliance of Michigan
  • Adrien Ross, MSN, RN, CPHQ, Lead, Quality Improvement Specialist, Corewell Health
  • Heidi Steinhebel, RN, BSN, CCM, Senior Associate Director of Care Management, Trinity Health IHA Medical Group
  • Caitlin Valley, MHA, MPH, CHES, Director of Quality and Population Health, Trinity Health IHA Medical Group
  • Larrea Young, MDes, Multimedia Design Project Manager, Healthy Behavior Optimization for Michigan

Spring Collaborative-Wide Meeting Poster Presenters

  • Jennifer Bennett, MBA, BSN, RN, Lead Quality and Patient Safety Coordinator, Henry Ford Health Madison Heights-Warren Hospital
  • Sara Hagerman, BSN, RN, Community Hospital Quality Lead, University of Michigan Health – Sparrow Carson
  • Ginger Johnson, OTR, Manager Post-Acute Care, Populance, Henry Ford Health System
  • Mike Johnson, Primary Care Practice Administrator, Munson Healthcare East Region
  • Liz Monk, System Director of Patient Care Manager, Munson Healthcare
  • Gloria Rey, PA-C, MPH, Director Post-Acute Care, Populance, Henry Ford Health System
  • Audra Stoker, PMP, Manager Post-Acute Care Network Development, Populance, Henry Ford Health System

Virtual Networking Event

  • Richard Wylde, MSc, Deputy Director of Improvement at Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

MiCR Virtual Forums on Telehealth Cardiac Rehabilitation

  • Robert Berry, MS, ACSM-CEP FAACVPR, Clinical Coordinator of Cardiac Rehabilitation, Henry Ford Health
  • Samantha Fink, BS, Administrative Manager, Domino’s Farms Cardiology, Michigan Medicine
  • Steven J. Keteyian, PhD, Bioscientific Clinical Staff, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Henry Ford Hospital
  • Diane Perry, MS, ACSM-CCEP, CHWC, Certified Clinical Exercise Physiologist, Michigan Medicine
  • Kat Steenson, MS, Clinical Exercise Physiologist, Henry Ford Health
Graphic design featuring silhouettes of eight business people standing above bold text reading "THANK YOU" on a blue bokeh background. Two circular shapes contain Michigan Value Collaborative logo on left and text "From all of us at MVC" on right, expressing gratitude from the organization.

The MVC members and partners who attend MVC events appreciated these presenters, too. Here are just a few of the many glowing survey responses MVC received about presenters and their content in the first half of 2026.

Screenshot of five positive testimonial quotes about MVC workgroups and collaborative-wide meetings, displayed in white text with orange quotation mark icons on a blue background. Quotes highlight benefits such as insightful content, flexible conversation, valuable information sharing, and practical application for sepsis process development in emergency department triage.

As a reminder, past workgroups and virtual networking event recordings can be viewed on MVC’s YouTube channel, and presentation slides and materials from MVC’s spring collaborative-wide meeting can be viewed here.

Do you have valuable information to share?

Whether you are new to presenting or a seasoned pro, the MVC Coordinating Center is here to support you every step of the way. From exploring topic ideas to preparing information and managing event logistics, our team makes the experience of presenting easy and comfortable. The P4P points you can earn as a presenter are a great benefit to your organization, too. For more information about presenting, contact the MVC Coordinating Center or submit a proposal here.

10 Jun 2026
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CQI Spotlight: Michigan Radiation Oncology Quality Consortium

CQI Spotlight: Michigan Radiation Oncology Quality Consortium

June 10, 2026 | Comments Closed | , , , , , , , ,

Cancer treatment is complex, and for many patients, radiation therapy is a critical part of their care journey. Yet the delivery of radiation therapy—how much is given, how often, and with what level of precision—can vary widely across providers, with meaningful implications for outcomes, side effects, and overall patient experience.

The Michigan Radiation Oncology Quality Consortium (MROQC) was founded in 2011 in partnership with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) to better understand and reduce variation in radiation therapy practices across Michigan - specifically related to the use of advanced technologies such as 3D conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT) and intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) in breast and lung cancer treatment. The BCBSM-funded CQIs play a crucial role in driving healthcare quality improvement in Michigan. MVC is excited to continue highlighting the innovative contributions of individual CQIs like MROQC and the ways in which MVC’s data support high-value care initiatives across the portfolio.

At the time of MROQC’s founding, there was growing interest in understanding how these technologies were being used across institutions and ensuring that newer, more complex approaches were being applied appropriately and consistently. By bringing radiation oncology providers together in a statewide collaborative, MROQC created a platform to compare treatment patterns, share best practices, and evaluate how different approaches affected patient outcomes. Over time, the work of MROQC expanded beyond treatment utilization to focus on broader quality improvement and value-based care initiatives. Today, the consortium supports multiple disease-site quality initiatives, collects patient-reported outcomes, and collaborates with clinicians and health system partners to improve the safety, effectiveness, and patient-centeredness of radiation therapy across Michigan.

Services and Benefits to MROQC Members

One of the most unique aspects of MROQC is its strong culture of collaboration across institutions that would traditionally be competitors. Radiation oncologists, medical physicists, nurses, dosimetrists, radiation therapists, abstractors, and administrators from across Michigan work together to analyze data, identify opportunities for improvement, and implement changes that benefit patients statewide. It is through this collaborative infrastructure that MROQC supports radiation oncology providers, hospitals, and care teams across Michigan.

Members benefit from:

  • Participation in statewide quality improvement initiatives across multiple disease sites
  • Access to real-time performance dashboards and benchmarking data
  • Collaborative working groups where clinicians share best practices and develop new quality measures
  • Educational opportunities and training resources
  • Support for research, publications, and national presentations
  • Participation in innovative incentive programs such as the BCBSM Gold Card program, which reduces prior authorization burden for high-performing facilities.

Through this collaborative model, the MROQC Coordinating Center team (Figure 1) enables clinicians and institutions to learn from each other, implement best practices more quickly, and continuously improve patient care. This has allowed Michigan to become a national leader in radiation oncology quality improvement, demonstrating how data-driven partnerships between member providers and payers can improve outcomes, reduce costs, and enhance patient experience.

Figure 1. MROQC Coordinating Center Team

Photo of 23 MROQC team members standing outside in front of a building

MROQC’s Key Initiatives and Achievements

Several initiatives highlight how MROQC’s collaborative model has been translated into meaningful improvements for patients and providers across Michigan.

Expanding use of shorter, evidence-based radiation treatments

MROQC has helped increase the adoption of hypofractionated radiation therapy, which delivers effective treatment in fewer sessions. For example, the use of accelerated whole breast radiation therapy has increased by more than 60% statewide, reducing treatment burden for patients while maintaining excellent outcomes.

Similarly, initiatives promoting shorter treatment courses for bone metastases have helped 78% of MROQC patients receive effective pain relief with fewer visits to the clinic, improving quality of life while reducing healthcare costs.

Improving treatment safety by reducing radiation exposure to critical organs

Through collaborative treatment planning initiatives, MROQC members have worked to reduce radiation exposure to organs such as the heart and esophagus during cancer treatment. These efforts have helped lower the risk of treatment-related complications and improve the safety of radiation therapy across the state.

Reducing administrative burden through the Gold Card program

In partnership with BCBSM, MROQC helped develop and implement the Gold Card program in 2017, which allows high-performing radiation oncology facilities to receive automatic prior authorization approval for radiation therapy treatments. This program rewards facilities that consistently meet quality improvement criteria and has significantly reduced administrative burden while allowing clinicians to begin treatment more quickly for patients.

Together, these successes demonstrate how statewide collaboration and real-world data can drive improvements in patient outcomes, treatment efficiency, and value-based care (Figure 2).

Figure 2. MROQC Performance: The Right Treatment at the Right Time

Infographic presents key statistics on radiation treatment effectiveness and advancements for breast, lung, bone metastases, and prostate patients from 2015 to 2024. Uses blue icons and bold percentages to highlight milestones such as 16K breast patients receiving targeted radiation, 89% lung patients avoiding esophagus radiation, 78% bone metastases patients benefiting from treatment reducing time and improving quality of life, and over 1K prostate patients receiving high precision radiation.

MROQC’s current initiatives focus on advancing high-value radiation therapy while strengthening the data infrastructure needed to support statewide quality improvement. Across its disease-site working groups - breast, lung, prostate, and metastatic cancer - MROQC continues to promote initiatives that improve treatment quality, reduce variation in care, and support evidence-based practice. Current efforts include improving treatment planning standards, expanding the use of shorter radiation therapy courses when appropriate, and monitoring treatment safety measures that reduce toxicity and improve patient outcomes.

MROQC is also expanding its quality improvement work to include brain metastases, building on the success of the existing metastases working group. This effort will help better understand treatment patterns and outcomes for patients receiving radiation therapy for brain metastases and identify opportunities to standardize and improve care.

For prostate cancer, MROQC partners with the Michigan Urological Surgery Improvement Collaborative (MUSIC) to better understand care across the full patient journey - from diagnosis through treatment. This collaboration allows the teams to link data across specialties and identify opportunities to improve coordination and outcomes for prostate cancer patients across Michigan.

Together, these initiatives ensure that MROQC continues to support clinicians across Michigan with the data, collaboration, and infrastructure needed to improve radiation therapy care for patients statewide.

Graphic quote from Lori Pierce, MD, highlighting MROQC as a unique radiation oncology-based collaborative quality initiative. The text emphasizes MROQC's role in setting standards for radiation-associated healthcare outcomes and efficient use of healthcare dollars in treating breast, lung, prostate cancers, and metastatic disease.

Addressing Non-Medical Drivers of Health Outcome Variation

Another important focus area is improving access to care for all Michigan cancer patients. MROQC is addressing variation in care through both data collection and targeted quality improvement efforts. The consortium collects data on demographic and social factors that may influence access to care or treatment outcomes. These data allow the collaborative to identify patterns of variation across facilities and patient populations and develop targeted interventions to address those outcome gaps. In addition, MROQC established the M-EQUAL committee, which focuses specifically on improving access to high-quality cancer care. The committee works to expand non-medical drivers of care data collection, is aiming to develop barriers-to-care quality measures and provides education and resources to member institutions to improve access and outcomes for all patients. Ultimately, MROQC’s efforts to leverage statewide data with collaborative learning translate into tangible benefits for patients: shorter and more convenient treatment courses, fewer complications, and more consistent care regardless of where they are treated.

Looking Ahead: Strengthening Data Infrastructure and Member Engagement

MVC and MROQC are currently partnering to explore a new data opportunity using claims-based analysis. This effort is looking to evaluate whether reduced fraction palliative radiotherapy for painful bone metastases among MROQC-participating sites results in lower overall healthcare utilization compared to episodes of care attributed to non-MROQC sites.

MROQC knows from experience that quality improvement requires more than collecting data - it requires building trust among clinicians, ensuring data accuracy, and creating opportunities for teams to learn from one another. Over the years, MROQC has seen how powerful a collaborative model can be when clinicians across institutions come together around shared goals. That is why the MROQC Coordinating Center continues to strengthen member engagement and is investing heavily in data infrastructure and reporting tools to support the collaborative with trustworthy, accurate data. These efforts include improving dashboards and reporting capabilities for participating facilities and preparing for a transition to a more scalable data platform to support future growth, analytics, and research. Visit the MROQC website to learn more about its team, offerings, and successes.

03 Jun 2026
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May Workgroup Highlights Building and Sustaining a Systemwide Sepsis Team

May Workgroup Highlights Building and Sustaining a Systemwide Sepsis Team

June 3, 2026 | Comments Closed | , ,

In May, the Michigan Value Collaborative (MVC) hosted a virtual sepsis workgroup featuring a presentation on the evolution of Michigan Medicine’s enterprise-wide sepsis initiative and the lessons learned while building a sustainable, multidisciplinary sepsis program. The MVC Coordinating Center hosts workgroup presentations once or twice per month, covering a variety of topics including post-discharge follow-up, sepsis, cardiac rehabilitation, rural health, preoperative testing, and health in action.

Sepsis Workgroup – Michigan Medicine

Sepsis remains one of the leading drivers of mortality across healthcare systems, including Michigan Medicine. When sepsis can be treated, this not only reduces patient mortality, but also length of stay, readmissions, morbidities, and overall health of patients, so it comes as no surprise that Michigan Medicine recognized the need to make modifications to their current approach to sepsis management. Presenter Tami Garcia, MSN, RN, Sepsis Team Manager at Michigan Medicine explained how they began by moving away from siloed approaches to care. Early efforts focused on understanding existing workflows across Michigan Medicine’s enterprise and identifying inconsistencies in sepsis care. This included the recognition, escalation, and treatment of sepsis across adult, maternal, emergency and inpatient care settings.

While the team had a foundation set up with dashboards and procedural guides for screening, there had never been a team dedicated to ensuring consistent sepsis care across the system. Rather than immediately deploy new tools or mandates, this new team prioritized “Gemba walking” to meet providers where they work to better understand barriers, workflows, and frontline realities. As Garcia explained, “we need to build changes with our staff, not to our staff.” Garcia credited this approach to helping the sepsis team identify opportunities to standardize care while also building trust with bedside clinicians.

Building Trust as a Quality Improvement Strategy

A major theme throughout Garcia’s presentation was the importance of developing trust in quality improvement work. She emphasized that credibility and relationships became foundational to the success of this sepsis initiative. In addition to Gemba walking, the team focused on:

  • Maintaining a visible unit presence
  • Responding quickly to staff concerns
  • Closing communication loops
  • Listening to frontline staff frustrations
  • Incorporating clinician feedback into workflow design

Figure 1. Michigan Medicine’s Sepsis Team Standard Work and Governance Framework

Flowchart diagram illustrating sepsis coordinator rounding process and workflow reliability in a healthcare setting. It includes labeled boxes for standard work steps (Recognize, Huddle/escalate, Execute sepsis bundle), clear ownership by program team and units, and feedback loops showing stages of communication (What we heard, What changed, What we measured).

One notable outcome of this approach involved the reduction in excessive Epic alerts that historically contributed to alarm fatigue among nursing staff. Rather than dismissing the concerns, the team partnered with clinicians and informatics specialists to reduce unnecessary alerts and improve usability. This example is related to just one of the four main lessons learned by the sepsis team:

  1. Trust-building is a deliverable
  2. Tools must fit a workflow, otherwise they become workarounds
  3. Sustainment requires ownership
  4. Reducing burden (e.g., alarms) is improvement, not compromise

Standardizing Sepsis Recognition and Response

Following this period of learning and trust-building, the Michigan Medicine sepsis team began implementing a series of targeted interventions designed to improve reliability and timeliness of care.

Some key initiatives included:

  • Re-establishing multidisciplinary sepsis huddles in the adult emergency department
  • Enhancing Epic tools and workflows (adult, pediatric, etc.)
  • Launching maternal sepsis screening and nurse-initiated patient care orders
  • Implementing non-invasive fluid responsiveness technology in ICUs
  • Establishing nurse sepsis champions and physician ambassador programs
  • Creating neonatal sepsis response workflows in the NICU

Figure 2. Michigan Medicine’s ER Workflow and Sepsis Huddle Process Map

Flowchart illustrating ER workflow and Sepsis Huddle process for Michigan Medicine, detailing steps from initial sepsis screen to reassessment and monitoring. Key elements include color-coded boxes for tasks like RN paging for Sepsis Huddle, provider actions, and code sepsis activation, with timelines and criteria for bundle completion and reassessment.

Garcia highlighted the adult emergency department sepsis huddles as one of the team’s most impactful initiatives. The huddles bring nurses and providers together immediately after a positive sepsis screen to rapidly determine next steps and initiate treatment plans. This converts concern into coordinated action and normalizes escalation. Combined with streamlined order workflows and decision-support tools, timeliness of care and collaboration between disciplines have been improved.

Measurable Improvements in Sepsis Outcomes

Measurable improvements in both process and outcome measures since the formation of the dedicated sepsis team in 2022 were then reviewed. The reported improvements included:

  • Adult emergency department SEP-1 bundle compliance increased from approximately 50% in 2022 to almost 80% in 2026
  • Severe sepsis and septic shock mortality rates decreased from 26.2% in 2022 to 20.1% in 2025
  • Maternal sepsis screening rates exceeded 90% for OB triage and 78% for inpatient screens
  • Pediatric sepsis alert burden was reduced significantly from over 35,000 OPA’s in 2022 to just under 20,000 in 2025
  • Reduced the frequency of first antibiotic administration in neonatal populations at >120 minutes from over 40% to under 15% between the beginning and end of 2025

Garcia repeatedly credited frontline teams for these successes, emphasizing that sustained improvement depended on empowering all team members, especially clinicians, rather than relying solely on centralized oversight.

Expanding Frontline Ownership Through Sepsis Champions

One of the most promising developments discussed was the creation of the RN Sepsis Champion Program. Nurses serving as sepsis champions support local reliability, providing peer-to-peer education, reinforcing workflows, and helping to disseminate best practices within their units. Garcia described how this program has expanded rapidly across the Michigan Medicine organization and has already demonstrated improvements to bundle compliance and mortality outcomes in pilot units. Champions are especially important given high turnover rates and shifting operational pressures in healthcare. With monthly meetings, shared educational resources, and ongoing collaboration, champions help maintain momentum and create local ownership of sepsis improvement efforts.

Looking ahead, Michigan Medicine plans to sustain workflows, expand sepsis huddles, and strengthen support for sepsis champions and physician ambassadors. Garcia closed the presentation by reinforcing that successful sepsis improvement, or perhaps any quality improvement initiative, depends on partnership, humility, and continuous learning. As Garcia explained, “We really want to continue to partner with our teams to make sure they understand why we’re here, that they trust we’re here for the best of everybody -them and their patients.”

MVC Sepsis Workgroup: May 21, 2026

MVC welcomes presenters from across Michigan to share their expertise, success stories, initiatives, and solution-focused ideas with MVC members through various best-practice sharing platforms. Please reach out to us by email if you are interested in being a workgroup presenter or submit an online presentation proposal.

27 May 2026
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PY 2025 Final Scorecards Shared for MVC Component of the BCBSM P4P Program

PY 2025 Final Scorecards Shared for MVC Component of the BCBSM P4P Program

May 27, 2026 | Comments Closed |

Last month, the Michigan Value Collaborative (MVC) distributed final scorecards for Program Year (PY) 2025 of the MVC Component of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) Pay-for-Performance (P4P) Program. This report provided hospitals with their final scores for PY 2025 as well as detailed breakdowns by scoring components. It also included a preview of measure scoring for the new health outcome variation measure that will be worth one point in PYs 2026-2027.

Each hospital received a final score out of a total of 10 points, including 0 to 4 points for their selected total episode payment metric, 0 to 4 points for their selected value metric, and 0 to 2 points for completed eligible engagement activities. PY 2025 scored each participating hospital’s achievement and improvement for selected episode spending conditions and value metrics using index admissions from 2024 performance year data against 2022 baseline year data. Hospitals were awarded the higher of their achievement or improvement point scores.

Figure 1 illustrates the distribution of total points out of 10 across the collaborative. The average points scored across the final scorecards was 6.7 out of 10. This average is 0.1 higher than the average points scored at the conclusion of PY 2024.

Figure 1. Distribution of Hospital Total Point Scores for PY 2025

Line chart showing final scores of MVC hospitals participating in PY 24-25 program, with scores ranging from 2 to 10 out of 10. Chart includes orange line for mean score (6.7) and gray line for median score (6.0), highlighting most hospitals scored above median and mean.

Figure 2 illustrates the breakdown of scoring on average by each program component (i.e., episode spending metric, value metric, engagement points). Hospitals could earn up to four points for their episode spending and value metric selections, and up to two points for engagement activities completed in 2025. Across the collaborative, hospitals scored an average of 2.2 points for episode spending, 2.6 points for value metrics, and 1.8 points for engagement activities.

Figure 2. Average Points Earned in PY 2025 by Scoring Component

Bar chart comparing average scores across hospitals in four categories: Episode Spending Points, Value Metrics, Engagement Points, and Final Score. Bars are color-coded gray, blue, orange, and dark blue respectively, with Final Score notably highest at 6.7 out of 10.

Figure 3 illustrates the breakdown of the average points by episode spending conditions. The highest scoring episode spending condition was coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) with an average of 2.9 points, and this was followed by joint replacement with 2.5 points. Conditions that hospitals scored less than 2 points on episode spending on average were congestive heart failure and pneumonia with 1.7 and 1.5 points respectively.

Figure 3. Average Points Earned Out of Four in PY 2025 by Episode Spending Condition

Bar chart comparing PY 25 episode spending scores across five medical conditions, with CABG showing the highest score of 2.9 and Pneumonia the lowest at 1.5. Chart includes mean spending score of 2.2 and median of 3.0, with dark blue bars labeled by condition on the x-axis and spending scores on the y-axis.

Figure 4 illustrates the breakdown of average points by value metrics. Consistent with PY 2024, the highest scoring value metric was preoperative testing with 3.7 points. This was followed by 90-day cardiac rehab after PCI and 7-day follow up after CHF, both with an average score of 2.7 points. The lowest scoring value metric was 7-day follow up after pneumonia and follows the same trend as that of PY 2024 with 2 points.

Figure 4. Average Points Earned Out of Four in PY 2025 by Value Metric

Bar chart displaying PV 25 value metric scores across various medical follow-up and testing categories, with scores ranging from 2.0 to 3.7. Categories include preoperative testing, cardiac rehab, and inpatient readmissions, with mean score 2.7 and median 3.0 indicated on chart.

Figure 5 shows the distribution of engagement points earned out of a maximum of 2 across the collaborative. Notably, about 70% of the participating hospitals earned both engagement points in PY 2025.

Figure 5. Distribution of Engagement Points Earned by Hospitals in PY 2025

Scatter plot showing engagement scores of MVC hospitals participating in PY 24-25 program, with individual hospital scores represented by blue dots. An orange horizontal line marks the mean score of 1.8, highlighting that most hospitals meet or exceed this engagement threshold.

This is the second year of a two-year (PY 24-25) P4P cycle. The full methodology for this program cycle can be found in the PY2024-2025 technical document [PDF].

In addition to the PY 2025 final scorecard summary, this report also included a preview of the new health outcome variation measure scoring, which will be worth one point in PY 2026-2027 (Figure 6). The table presents the hospital’s payer-specific risk-adjusted readmission rates in the performance year, the baseline and performance indexes for the hospital, and the target indexes required to score a point via improvement or achievement. This table’s scoring is based on PY 2025 data (i.e., 2024 performance year data and 2022 baseline data). When used in conjunction with other previously shared reports (e.g., the health outcome variation measure push report), hospitals can view performance trends over time on this measure. MVC has also recently prepared custom report requests for members on their HOV performance.

Please note that this table was included to help orient members with the scoring methodology for this new measure and did not impact PY 2025 scores. For detailed information about this measure, hospitals can watch an MVC introductory video to the HOV measure and refer to the PY 2026-2027 P4P technical document.

Figure 6. Sample Scoring of New Health Outcome Variation Measure

Table displaying Health Outcome Variation Measure for hospital readmission rates in 2024 across different insurance types, including BCBSM/BCN Commercial, BCBSM/BCN MA, Medicaid, Medicare, and Dual-Eligible. Key data includes baseline index (1.29), performance overall (3.03), target index for improvement (1.25), target index for achievement (1.24), and a scoring column with points scored (1).

If you have any questions regarding PY 2025 of the MVC Component of the BCBSM P4P Program, please refer to the MVC P4P PY 2024-2025 Technical Document.  You can also contact the MVC Coordinating Center for a walkthrough of your hospital’s PY 2025 final scorecard or P4P registry reports. MVC will evaluate and release mid-year scorecards for PY 2026 in Q3 of 2026.

20 May 2026
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Key Takeaways from MiCR’s First Telehealth Cardiac Rehab Forum

Key Takeaways from MiCR’s First Telehealth Cardiac Rehab Forum

May 20, 2026 | Comments Closed | , , , , , ,

Since 2019, the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium (BMC2) and the Michigan Value Collaborative (MVC) have worked together to improve cardiac rehabilitation utilization in Michigan. This collaboration led to the founding of the Michigan Cardiac Rehabilitation network (MiCR) in 2022, a partnership that endeavors to increase participation in cardiac rehab for all eligible individuals in Michigan through clinical practice sharing, networking, data benchmarking, and the dissemination of resources.

On April 17, MiCR invited practitioners from across Michigan to discuss the evolving role of virtual and hybrid cardiac rehabilitation programming amidst recent legislative wins. In February, Congress advanced the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 7148), which extends Medicare telehealth and in-home cardiopulmonary rehabilitation flexibilities through December 31, 2027. With this extension, cardiac, intensive cardiac, and pulmonary rehab programs in both hospital outpatient and physician office settings can continue delivering services virtually using two-way audio and video technology through the end of 2027. This two-year window gives programs the opportunity to launch or expand hybrid rehab models, try new approaches to reach patients who have difficulty attending in-person sessions, and plan with greater confidence while longer-term policy solutions are explored.

MiCR kicked off the forum emphasizing its mission and the progress made to date in statewide enrollment, with participation rates for eligible cardiac patients across the collaborative increasing from 24% in 2020 to 35% in 2024. Despite progress being made, the state is still short of the MiCR goal of 40% enrollment within 90 days of discharge from eligible procedures (Figure 1), as well as the Million Hearts goal of 70% enrollment.

Figure 1. Trends in cardiac rehab enrollment within 90 days of discharge from AMI, CABG, PCI, SAVR, or TAVR encounter

Line graph showing yearly trends in cardiac rehab participation within 90 days of discharge from various cardiac procedures between 2020 and 2024. The graph compares actual MVC participation rates, increasing from 24% in 2020 to 35% in 2024, against a constant MiCR goal of 40%, highlighting a gradual upward trend.

MiCR conducted a short survey in 2025 about telehealth programming in cardiac rehab to better understand opportunities to close the enrollment gap using telehealth, and how leaders and care teams feel about offering telehealth options. Of the 27 cardiac rehab sites that responded, only two were currently offering some form of virtual cardiac rehab, while some others expressed interest in launching or further investigating virtual service options.

Defining Cardiac Rehab Delivery Models

Prior to initiating a discussion, MiCR reviewed several key definitions to clarify terminology surrounding evolving cardiac rehab delivery models:

  • Traditional in-center delivery: synchronous, in-person care
  • Virtual delivery: synchronous, real-time, audio-visual communication
  • Remote delivery: asynchronous communication between patients and providers
  • Hybrid delivery: use of more than one of the methods noted above.

The forum focused primarily on virtual and hybrid delivery approaches given insurance reimbursement stipulations. MiCR emphasized how hybrid models may offer optimal opportunities for organizations to balance flexibility, patient engagement, and clinical oversight.

Health Systems Share Real-World Virtual Cardiac Rehab Experiences

The forum next featured presentations from two Michigan hospitals currently offering virtual or hybrid cardiac rehab programming.

Henry Ford Health

Steven Keteyian, PhD, Bioscientific Clinical Staff in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, and Kat Steenson, MS, Clinical Exercise Physiologist, shared insights into Henry Ford Health’s hybrid cardiac rehab model, including their group virtual session structure.

Dr. Keteyian spoke to the importance of designing a virtual program as similar to current in-center facility programming as possible – including using the same forms, outcome measures, even times that the classes are offered. He noted that this simple mindset may help to streamline implementation and workflows. Additionally, Dr. Keteyian encouraged programs considering virtual care to engage physician champions and optimize internal billing support when getting started.

Steenson discussed her experience delivering both traditional in-center and virtual cardiac rehab care and highlighted the important opportunity virtual delivery offers to extend services to patients facing transportation, scheduling, or geographic barriers. She also encouraged sites to develop virtual programming in line with current in-person practices, noting that this makes it easier on the staff ultimately delivering the services.

Michigan Medicine

Next, Samantha Fink, Administrative Manager of Domino’s Farms Cardiology, and Diane Perry, MS, ACSM-CCEP, CHWC, Certified Clinical Exercise Physiologist, outlined Michigan Medicine’s participation in a research pilot for virtual cardiac rehab delivery over the last two years.

Fink highlighted the importance of combining operational planning, process improvement, and patient accessibility initiatives when initially building virtual programs. She noted that while their patients expressed significant interest in virtual options, not all were set up for success—lacking reliable technology, exercise equipment, or appropriate health screenings prior to starting virtual cardiac rehab. Fink also encouraged sites to establish clear emergency protocols and steps for assessing the appropriateness of virtual care.

Perry then shared her perspective as an exercise physiologist on adapting patient support, exercise guidance, and engagement strategies for the virtual environment. She also endorsed a hybrid program, and she spoke in more detail about the importance of in-person initial assessments to confirm the appropriateness of virtual cardiac rehab.

Telehealth as a Tool to Improve Access

After introducing example programs, MiCR Co-Directors Jessica Golbus, MD, MS, and Michael Thompson, PhD, MPH, facilitated a panel discussion on future implementation opportunities, reimbursement considerations, and collaborative learning across Michigan programs.

Throughout the discussion, the panelists repeatedly emphasized that virtual cardiac rehab is not intended to replace traditional in-center rehab but rather enhance access and reduce long-standing barriers to participation. The panelists pointed out that virtual and hybrid approaches may help programs better serve patients with access barriers, such as rural patients, individuals with transportation limitations, working adults, caregivers, and patients with scheduling challenges. Discussion also reinforced that flexibility in care delivery models may improve patient adherence and completion rates. Lastly, the panelists underscored that successful digital transformation in healthcare is less about chasing trends and more about building practical, individualized programs that improve visibility, efficiency, and accessibility.

The webinar concluded with a call for continued innovation and collaboration as health systems explore new ways to improve cardiac rehab participation. With the extension of federal telehealth flexibilities through the end of 2027, presenters encouraged hospitals to consider this time as an opportunity to pilot, expand, and evaluate virtual cardiac rehab programs. For those interested in learning more about virtual cardiac rehab, the following resources may assist your organization’s journey:

Additionally, you can reference the recording of this forum via YouTube.

MiCR will host a second virtual forum discussion on Tues., June 9, from 12-1 p.m. featuring a demonstration of Henry Ford Health’s group virtual cardiac rehab programming. Registration is available now.

13 May 2026
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MVC 2026 Spring Collaborative-Wide Meeting Summary – From Innovation to Impact: Advancing Care Across Health Networks

MVC 2026 Spring Collaborative-Wide Meeting Summary – From Innovation to Impact: Advancing Care Across Health Networks

May 13, 2026 | Comments Closed | , , ,

The Michigan Value Collaborative (MVC) held its spring 2026 collaborative-wide meeting on Fri., May 8, in Traverse City, Michigan. A total of 84 attendees representing 48 hospitals, 16 multi-hospital systems, and seven physician organizations from throughout the state of Michigan explored strategies for elevating quality across integrated health networks through the lens of system-wide alignment and data-driven improvement.

MVC Director Mark Bradshaw, MSc, began Friday’s meeting with updates on the MVC Coordinating Center and the MVC Component of the BCBSM P4P Program [see slides]. He first introduced attendees to MVC’s newest team members, Senior Faculty Advisor Ryan Howard, MD, MS, and Lead Analyst Megan Heath, PhD. Bradshaw then provided an update on recent MVC reporting since the fall collaborative-wide meeting, including 12 hospital-level custom reports, a push report focused on follow-up utilization, and the P4P Program Year (PY) 2025 final scorecards. It was further announced that MVC’s registry was recently updated with new payer data, including three new months of BCBSM/BCN claims and three new quarters of Medicare FFS claims.

He also provided an update on MVC’s new site coordinator education program. With a total of 31 site coordinators enrolled thus far in 2026, he encouraged those interested in starting in Q4 of 2026 or Q1 of 2027 to join the waitlist for this individualized educational offering [registration link].

Bradshaw next summarized updates on the Michigan Cardiac Rehab network’s (MiCR) efforts to improve cardiac rehabilitation utilization. These include an upcoming MiCR virtual forum featuring a group cardiac rehab demo [registration link], a third round of NewBeat material orders, and Heart-to-Heart patient stories. Additionally, he summarized the status of MiCR’s medication management initiative. If interested in participating in an interview on this topic, please contact MVC via email [email link].

After providing MVC Coordinating Center updates, Bradshaw moved on to provide insights into final scoring of P4P PY 2025 (see Figures 1-3), which included slight increases in average total points scored from PY 2024, some improvements in engagement point scoring, and continued scoring success for value metrics tied to MVC’s value-based initiatives (e.g., cardiac rehab and preoperative testing metrics).

Figure 1. Distribution of MVC’s P4P PY 2025 Total Points

Line chart displays final scores of MVC hospitals participating in PY 24-25 program, with scores plotted as blue dots ranging from 2 to 10. Horizontal lines indicate mean score of 6.7 in orange and median score of 6.0 in gray, highlighting most hospitals scoring above median with several reaching 10 out of 10.

Figure 2. MVC’s P4P PY 2025 Scoring Breakdown by Episode Spending and Value Metric Selections

Horizontal bar chart comparing PY 25 episode spending scores and value metric scores across medical conditions and procedures. Spending scores range from 1.5 for Pneumonia to 2.9 for CABG, while value metric scores range from 2.0 for 7-day follow-up after Pneumonia to 3.7 for Preoperative Testing, with mean and median values indicated for each group.

Figure 3. MVC’s P4P PY 2025 Engagement Point Distribution

Scatter plot showing engagement scores of MVC hospitals participating in PY 24-25 program, with individual hospital scores represented by blue dots and a mean score of 1.8 marked by an orange horizontal line. Most hospitals achieve or exceed the mean score, with several reaching the maximum score of 2.0, indicating high engagement levels across participants.

After reviewing hospital performance in 2025, Bradshaw looked to the PY 2026-2027 cycle, announcing a one-time alternative point opportunity for PY 2026 to earn credit for MVC’s new health outcome variation (HOV) metric. Additional details on submission requirements and timelines will be announced to site coordinators in the coming weeks. Following this, he noted the many opportunities to earn engagement points remaining in calendar year 2026 including virtual workgroups, networking dinners, and MVC’s fall collaborative-wide meeting in Livonia. For a complete schedule of events and registration, please visit MVC’s events webpage. Bradshaw reminded members that PY 2026 mid-year scorecards are expected in Q3 2026, and hospitals will be asked to make metric selections for PYs 2028-2029 in Q4 2026.

The meeting then featured an MVC data presentation by MVC Medical Director Hari Nathan, MD, PhD, and MVC Analyst Janet Zhang, MPH, on reporting and benchmarking outcomes across Michigan health systems. Dr. Nathan began with a discussion on the gradual, structural shift over the last two decades from independent ownership towards health system affiliation, noting that Michigan has outpaced national averages for system affiliation. He then reviewed the current state of MVC’s system-level reporting and outlined other measures of system variation from the literature not currently utilized in MVC reporting (Figure 4), emphasizing the need for MVC and its membership to co-design a path for measuring system-level quality in the future.

Zhang supplemented the presentation by sharing unblinded data on variation in hospital-level risk-adjusted 30-day readmission rates within hospital systems. She outlined traditional methods of showcasing variation using caterpillar plots and demonstrated how MVC might leverage hospital-level data to calculate a single index value for systems to support tracking variation over time. Zhang and Dr. Nathan both emphasized the importance of considering quality in outcomes and variation in outcomes as they evaluate their system-level performance.

Figure 4. Sample Approaches to Measuring System Variation

Table presenting system characteristics, relevant metrics, and rationales for surgical care quality assessment. It includes metrics like Herfindahl–Hirschman Index for centralization, case volume percentages for surgery avoidance and selective referral, and ambulatory surgery distribution, highlighting standards, care optimization, and resource allocation.

Building on the data presentation, a panel discussion led by Dr. Nathan further explored what “systemness” and system quality of care mean in practice and how stronger integration can improve quality, outcomes, and access across health systems and networks. Panelists included Alex Callaway, MBA, CPHQ, CPPS, Regional Quality Director of Munson Health System; Emily Nerreter, MBA, CPC, CRC, Pay for Performance & Registries Manager of Henry Ford Health System; and Stephanie Pins-Schallip, MSA, CPHQ, Director of Value Analysis & Enhancement of MyMichigan Health. Each panelist brought unique perspectives and experience to the discussion, presenting compelling evidence to support the optimization of system-level resources, data, and cooperation.

Attendees then spent the remainder of the morning in breakout sessions [see breakout session slides] learning from peers, sharing intervention success stories, and brainstorming approaches to measuring quality in both small, stand-alone hospitals and large multi-hospital systems:

  • Catalyst Community for Improvement: Transforming Performance Together (Corewell)
  • Roadmap to Building Strong Post-Acute Care Network (Trinity Health Alliance)
  • Developing a Heart Failure Care Management Program (Trinity Health IHA)
  • Rural & Critical Access Hospital Claims Data Reporting Strategies (MVC)
  • Advancing System-Level Quality Improvement: Exploring Concepts for New MVC Metrics (MVC)

Following a networking lunch and a second session of breakouts, attendees came back together for the presentation of MVC awards by Engagement Manager Jessica Souva, MSN, RN, C-ONQS. The 2025 Engagement Award recipients included:

  • Henry Ford Health – 2025 Most Engaged System
  • Primary Care Partners, Inc. - 2025 Most Engaged Physician Organization
  • Scheurer Health – 2025 Most Engaged Critical Access Hospital
  • University of Michigan Health-West – 2025 Most Engaged General Acute Care Hospital

Souva also announced the winner of the poster contest, which was identified through member voting during the afternoon poster session. University of Michigan Health – Sparrow Carson won “best poster” for their “Rural Sepsis Initiative: Timely Care, Better Outcomes” poster submission. The poster was presented by Sara Hagerman, BSN.

The meeting closed with a reflection of the day’s themes and sessions, and reminders about upcoming meetings and events.

What are attendees saying about the meeting?

“The interactive sessions were great, and so was the location.”

“Today was a really great day, filled with a lot of discussion, networking and interactive activities.”

“This was my first meeting. I appreciate the information shared and opportunity.”

“I liked the panel discussion today. In the past, I also like the different tables of presenters to allow for smaller group discussion. Overall, lots of good discussion on how to work in a system.”

“Always love coming to MVC collaborative wide meetings as they’re so informative and a great way to network with others who have the same or very similar goals and outcomes!”

“The information presented was highly applicable across systems and independents.”

If you have questions about any of the topics discussed at MVC’s spring collaborative-wide meeting or are interested in following up for more details, please email the MVC Coordinating Center. MVC’s next collaborative-wide meeting will be held in person on Fri., Oct. 9, 2026, in Livonia, Michigan.

28 Apr 2026
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MVC Push Report Benchmarks Follow-Up Rates for CHF, COPD, Pneumonia, and Sepsis Patients

MVC Push Report Benchmarks Follow-Up Rates for CHF, COPD, Pneumonia, and Sepsis Patients

April 28, 2026 | Comments Closed | ,

The Michigan Value Collaborative (MVC) distributed hospital-level follow-up push reports recently intended to support the evaluation of long-term trends as well as the identification of gaps in follow-up care across differing patient demographics. This report focused on follow-up care after hospitalization for congestive heart failure (CHF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), pneumonia, and sepsis—four of MVC’s value metrics for Program Years 2026-2027 of the MVC Component of the BCBSM Pay-for-Performance (P4P) Program.

While MVC also provides reporting on its P4P value metrics via scorecards and registry reports, this push report provided additional data on follow-up care at member hospitals by showcasing variability across a longer analytic timeframe and more detailed stratifications for its 30-day CHF, COPD, pneumonia, and sepsis episodes. MVC defined follow-up as episodes where a patient had an outpatient follow-up visit (in person or by telehealth) within 30 days or before a readmission, inpatient procedure, emergency department visit, skilled nursing facility admission, or visit for inpatient rehabilitation.

Contained in each hospital’s report was a page dedicated to follow-up following hospitalizations for each condition. On those report pages, MVC hospitals received comparisons to their peers on outpatient follow-up rates and 30-day risk-adjusted total episode payments, as well as their hospital’s outpatient follow-up rates stratified by payer.

The report also featured a patient population snapshot table that highlighted demographic data for patients in each condition cohort. These tables (see Figure 1) provided each hospital with information on race, mean age, common comorbidities, and several indicators of non-medical drivers of health.

Figure 1. Sociodemographic Overview of Patients Receiving Follow-Up Following Discharge for CHF, COPD, Pneumonia, or Sepsis at Hospital A

Table presenting sociodemographic overview of follow-up conditions at Hospital A, including CHF, COPD, pneumonia, and sepsis. It details age groups, race/ethnicity percentages, common comorbidities, and socioeconomic indicators such as diabetes prevalence and living conditions, with data organized in rows and columns for comparison across conditions.

*Patient zip codes categorized as prosperous, comfortable, mid-tier, at-risk, or distressed according to the Economic Innovation Group's Distressed Communities Index 2018-2022, which incorporates economic indicators such as education, employment, and income.

Each figure reflected index admissions between 1/1/2023-12/31/2024 in BCBSM PPO Commercial, BCBSM PPO Medicare Advantage, BCN HMO Commercial, BCN HMO Medicare Advantage, and Medicare Fee-for-Service claims, and between 1/1/2023-9/30/2024 in Michigan Medicaid claims. Individuals insured by both Medicare and Medicaid were categorized as dual-eligible in the payer-specific figures. Hospital reports included pages for each condition if they met the threshold of at least 11 qualifying episodes in each year of data for that condition.

There was wide variation in follow-up rates across the collaborative for all four conditions, with some member follow-up rates averaging less than 20% to greater than 60% among CHF, COPD, and pneumonia patients, and between less than 30% to greater than 70% among sepsis patients.

Among general acute care hospitals, there were consistent decreases in average follow-up rates across the collaborative compared to previous reporting; MVC provided reporting on these same follow-up measures in a Q1 2025 push report based on 2022-2023 claims. Using the updated 2023-2024 timeframe, the collaborative-wide average 14-day follow-up rate for patients hospitalized for COPD fell from 55.3% to 51%. A similar trend was observed for seven-day follow-up after CHF (decreased from 44.8% to 43.1%), seven-day follow-up after pneumonia (decreased from 42.7% to 41.6%), and 14-day follow-up after sepsis (decreased from 58% to 52.5%). Follow-up rates were often lowest among the Medicaid and dual-eligible patient populations (Figure 2), and are therefore a patient group that likely needs additional support and outreach. Additionally, across all four conditions the average risk-adjusted price-standardized total episode payment at general acute care hospitals was higher among patients who did not receive follow-up than among patients who received follow-up care (see COPD example in Figure 3).

Figure 2. 3-Day, 7-Day, and 14-Day Follow-Up Rate Among Patients Hospitalized for Sepsis by Payer for Hospital A

Bar chart comparing follow-up rates across five insurance categories with three time intervals: 3-day, 7-day, and 14-day follow-ups, represented by blue, gray, and orange bars respectively. Notable trends include consistently higher follow-up rates at 14 days, with Commercial insurance showing the highest rates.

Figure 3. Average 30-Day Risk-Adjusted, Price-Standardized Total Episode Payment Among Patients Hospitalized for COPD by 14-Day Follow-Up Status for Hospital A

Bar chart comparing 30-day total episode payments for 14-day and no 14-day follow-up periods across three categories: Your Hospital (blue), Your Region (gray), and GACH Average (orange). No 14-day follow-up shows higher payments overall.

MVC member hospitals who classify as Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) received alternate versions of the report, which used the averages of other CAHs as their comparison group in addition to MVC region. Similar to general acute care hospitals, the collaborative observed decreases in average follow-up rates among its CAH members for patients hospitalized for CHF (decrease from 39% to 38.2%), pneumonia (37.4% to 32.5%), and sepsis (44.7% to 43.9%). Among patients hospitalized for COPD at a CAH, however, there was an observed increase in the average 14-day follow-up rate from 44.9% to 47.2%. CAHs also observed similar trends of lower follow-up rates among Medicaid and dual-eligible patients.

Members can similarly benchmark the values and data provided in their recent report pages to the previously distributed follow-up push report from Q1 2025.

In addition to providing data on follow-up care, the MVC Coordinating Center offers a regular post-discharge follow-up workgroup series where members and partners share strategies and insights to help improve follow-up performance. The next workgroup will take place on Thurs., July 23, from 12-1 p.m. More information about upcoming MVC events can be found on the MVC events page.

If you have any suggestions on how these reports can be improved or have additional data requests to help support your quality improvement projects, please reach out to the MVC Coordinating Center.

22 Apr 2026
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April Workgroup Features Preoperative Testing Multipayer Report Registry Demonstration

April Workgroup Features Preoperative Testing Multipayer Report Registry Demonstration

April 22, 2026 | Comments Closed | , , , ,

In April, the Michigan Value Collaborative (MVC) hosted a virtual preoperative testing workgroup featuring a presentation by the MVC Coordinating Center focused on utilizing MVC’s multi-payer preoperative testing registry reports. The MVC Coordinating Center hosts workgroup presentations once or twice per month, covering a variety of topics including post-discharge follow-up, sepsis, cardiac rehabilitation, rural health, preoperative testing, and health in action.

Preoperative Testing Workgroup – MVC Coordinating Center

The MVC registry includes many different reports for members to utilize when investigating various conditions, procedures, and outcomes. One of the more recent additions includes the preoperative testing reports which include claims data from multiple payers in one location. Reports that were highlighted in the preoperative testing workgroup included the preoperative testing table report, preoperative testing trends report, and preoperative testing utilization rankings report.

Each report offers members multiple filters to modify the data shown including episode start dates, payer selection, specific conditions (or the option to choose all), several common preoperative tests, such as blood tests, cardiac tests, chest x-ray, electrocardiography (EKG), pulmonary function tests, and urinalysis, and patient demographics (age, gender, race/ethnicity, comorbidities).

MVC Site Engagement Coordinator and workgroup presenter Emily Bair, MS, MPH, RDN, introduced the workgroup by sharing a preoperative testing utilization trend graph that included data on all MVC members and all available payers. The graph demonstrated that since the implementation of the preoperative testing value-based initiative in 2020, MVC members have seen a 6% decrease in unnecessary preoperative testing utilization for specific low-risk procedures. Based on available claims data, preop testing rates across the collaborative have declined from approximately 44% to 38% since 2022.

MVC’s preoperative testing measure definition includes the following:

  1. Numerator: episodes of care where preoperative testing (e.g., urinalysis, pulmonary function, chest x-ray, electrocardiography, certain blood tests, and certain cardiac tests) occurred in the 30 days prior to MVC-defined low-risk laparoscopic cholecystectomy, inguinal hernia repair, and lumpectomy procedures.
  2. Denominator: Elective and outpatient MVC-defined cholecystectomy, inguinal hernia repair and lumpectomy episodes with length of stay between 0 – 2 days.

The preoperative testing initiative, known as the RITE-Size initiative, has been an ongoing collaborative effort between MVC, the Michigan Surgical Quality Collaborative (MSQC), Anesthesiology Performance Improvement and Reporting Exchange (ASPIRE), and the Michigan Program on Value Enhancement (MPrOVE). MVC and MSQC data registries were updated with preoperative testing metrics to improve visibility for members, give access to diverse data, and offer unique customization tools for preoperative testing reports. The MVC engagement team has an ongoing effort to engage and educate members on all of the resources available to them through our registry and data reports. To learn more about attendee usage of MVC data, Bair polled participants to assess whether they had accessed the preoperative testing reports, and if so, whether they used the data in any quality improvement (QI) efforts at their site or system (Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1. Poll: Have You Accessed MVC’s Multi-payer Reports?

Bar chart showing participant responses to accessing MVC's multi-payer reports, with three horizontal bars labeled "Yes," "No," and "Don't have access." The chart indicates 45% answered "No," 35% "Yes," and 15% "Don't have access," highlighting a majority have not accessed the reports.

Figure 2. Poll: Have You Used MVC’s Multi-payer Reports to Support QI?

Horizontal bar chart showing responses to using MVC's multi-payer reports for supporting QI, with three categories: "No" at about 38%, "Don't have access" at about 32%, and "Yes" at about 23%. Chart uses orange bars with percentage labels on the x-axis ranging from 0% to 45%, highlighting majority respondents either do not use or lack access to the reports.

The polling discussion revealed that while many attendees had registry access, 44% had not utilized these multi-payer reports for quality improvement work. Those that did utilize the reports (23%) shared that they use them for efforts such as system-level benchmarking across their hospitals.

Following the polling results, Bair shared unblinded data from Bronson Health System’s MVC multi-payer registry reports and MVC common conditions push report, covering how differing case counts can impact preoperative testing rate performance, especially when looking at conditions separately. Case volume is a common concern for smaller hospitals, such as critical access sites, when trying to extrapolate useful claims data. As larger health systems are acquiring smaller hospitals like critical access sites, though, they may need to shift how the data can and should be interpreted. Using yearly trending can increase the denominator for case data and give a more accurate visual representation of utilization or performance over time, whereas looking at data on a monthly or quarterly timeframe can show volatility due to case counts having high variability over short time ranges.

MVC welcomes workgroup presenters from across Michigan to share their expertise, success stories, initiatives, and solution-focused ideas with MVC members. Please reach out to us by email if you are interested in being a workgroup presenter or submit an online presentation proposal.