The United States has some of the best health care of any nation in the world and invests more per capita than any other nation for the delivery of health care. However, the U.S. also falls short of consistently providing quality care. In 2001, a publication of the Institute of Medicine recommended creating and aligning incentives for quality and making quality information available to enhance quality improvement, accountability and consumer choice.

In response, the Integrated Healthcare Association’s (IHA) Pay for Performance program was initiated and is the largest in the country to provide medical groups with incentive payments based upon performance against quality benchmarks. The program uses evidence-based measures to assess the performance of more than 35,000 physicians in 225 medical groups caring for more than 6.2 million commercial HMO enrollees. The program’s data is collected and analyzed by the National Committee Quality Assurance (NCQA), a Washington non-profit dedicated to improving health care quality.
Following this model, the Covenant Health Partnership brings the Lubbock-area medical community together to improve patient care. This partnership creates the opportunity to work together and develop clinical excellence standards that enhance medical care provided to residents of Lubbock and surrounding areas.

The partnership provides physicians and hospitals the opportunity to work in a trusting environment and jointly decide the most effective means of providing quality care. As the partnership continues, the medical costs will be evaluated and recommendations will be made which enhance medical outcomes and reduce medical costs. Through the partnership, physicians and Covenant Health System will work with buyers of health care creating an
environment to understand medical trends, evaluate health care costs and improve the health care status of the community.

Partnership to Improve Health Care in the Community