Collaborative Quality Initiatives

The power of the CQI movement rests in the statewide networks of hospitals, medical groups, physicians, nurses, data specialists and other interdisciplinary team members who put collaboration over competition.

The CQI infrastructure enables granular data collection from a wide variety of clinical sites, and the analysis of additional data sources, while fostering deep collaboration among hundreds of health care partners to share best practices for improving care and patient outcomes. 

Learn about the CQI continuous quality improvement cycle.

Get to know the CQIs

The Anesthesiology Performance Improvement and Reporting Exchange is the quality arm of the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group – a national consortium of hospitals focused on improving care for patients undergoing surgery. Within Michigan, their 30+ member hospitals are committed to understanding variation in care and working together to reduce complications and improve outcomes.

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The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium, or BMC2, aims to improve quality of care, reduce complications, increase medication adherence, and reduce adverse outcomes for patients with cardiovascular disease. The consortium has a focus on the following areas:

  • Percutaneous Coronary Intervention – commonly known as angioplasty and stenting
  • Vascular surgery for aneurysm repair
  • Bypass surgery for peripheral artery disease and carotid endarterectomy
  • Transcatheter aortic and mitral valve replacement and repair via the Michigan Structural Heart Consortium (MISHC), a quality improvement network designed to improve quality of care and outcomes in patients who undergo structural heart procedures. MISHC is a collaboration between BMC2 and the Michigan Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons (MSTCVS).
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Healthy Behavior Optimization for Michigan (HBOM) is a partnering CQI that works collaboratively with existing CQIs to improve health behaviors within their patient populations. The goal is to target health behaviors, such as smoking cessation, during teachable moments in health care including new diagnosis, surgery, hospitalization, and pregnancy. By using evidence-based and CQI-determined best practices, HBOM is a cross-cutting entity aimed at changing behaviors across multiple populations.

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The Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety (HMS) Consortium is focused on evaluating and improving the care of hospitalized medical patients who are at risk for adverse events.

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INHALE is dedicated to improving the quality of care for adults with COPD and adults and children with asthma across the state of Michigan. Launched in 2022, INHALE is an emerging population health Collaborative Quality Initiative (CQI) supported by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network.

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The Michigan Anticoagulation Quality Improvement Initiative aims to improve outcomes in patients requiring blood thinners for blood clot treatment and prevention. Quality improvement activities are centered around reducing the risk of bleeding and clotting adverse events.

The Michigan Arthroplasty Registry Collaborative Quality Initiative is a statewide quality initiative that improves the quality of hip and knee joint replacement surgery procedures and reduces unnecessary costs of this care in the state of Michigan.

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The Michigan Bariatric Surgery Collaborative aims to improve the quality of care for patients undergoing bariatric surgery in Michigan, by examining data, and designing and implementing changes in surgical care to improve outcomes.

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The Michigan Collaborative for Type 2 Diabetes aims to prevent, slow and reverse the progression of type 2 diabetes using three strategies: 

  1. increasing the prescribing of two newer classes of medications that control blood glucose levels
  2. supporting lower-carbohydrate diets 
  3. expanding the use of new, lower-cost continuous glucose monitoring devices
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The Michigan Emergency Department Improvement Collaborative (MEDIC) is dedicated to improving the quality of emergency department (ED) care across the state of Michigan. Launched in 2015, MEDIC is an integrated adult and pediatric, emergency medicine-led Collaborative Quality Initiative. MEDIC leverages shared knowledge and experience combined with timely feedback on quality measure performance to improve the care for patients. Participating EDs submit data to a clinical registry maintained by the MEDIC Coordinating Center, and the collaborators collect and analyze data, identify best practices, and improve collective performance.

MI-MIND is a collaborative quality initiative (CQI) bringing providers, health systems and suicide prevention experts together to reach shared goals: Improving suicide prevention, care and access to key behavioral health services in the State of Michigan. The mission is to engage psychiatrists, psychologists and primary care physicians in the use of care pathways to significantly reduce suicides in Michigan.

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The Michigan Back Pain Collaborative (MIBAC) is a statewide collaborative quality initiative funded by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Their focus is on reducing the rate of transition from acute low back pain to chronic, with a focus on first-contact clinicians including PCPs, Chiropractors, Urgent Care Physicians, Emergency Medicine Physicians, Physical Therapists, and more. MIBAC offers different types of training, and launched Quality Improvement activities in October of 2022, building the first all-payor patient registry for this patient population in the state.

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The Michigan Oncology Quality Consortium aims to promote high-quality, effective, and cost-efficient care for medical and gynecological cancer patients, using quality improvement guidelines facilitated by the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®).

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The Michigan Radiation Oncology Quality Consortium (MROQC) aims to determine the most appropriate use of intensity modulated radiation therapy for breast and lung cancer patients. The group establishes and disseminates best practice guidelines that enable practitioners to optimize the delivery of high quality, cost-effective care for breast, lung, & prostate cancers and bone metastases.

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The Michigan Social Health Interventions to Eliminate Disparities (MSHIELD) CQI was founded in 2021 to promote awareness and integration of social determinants of health across the CQI portfolio. MSHIELD’s mission is to empower CQIs to lead the future of quality improvement which achieves whole health for all people by integrating social care and clinical care, using data to drive health equity, and fostering a culture of anti-racism.

MSHIELD consists of 3 pillars that provide a foundation upon which we aim to achieve equitable health outcomes for all:  

  1. Data Strategy & Quality: Supporting CQIs to use their data to identify health inequities and develop equity-focused quality improvement goals.
  2.  Community-Clinical Partnerships: Collaborating with community and clinical partners to close the gap between healthcare and social service systems across the state.
  3. Culture of Equity: Driving a culture of equity across the CQI community to raise awareness and promote anti-racist approaches to quality improvement.
     
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MSQC is a collaborative of 69 Michigan hospitals dedicated to overall surgical quality improvement, better patient care, and lower costs. Collaborative members provide the data and share best practices. The Coordinating Center hosts a robust statewide registry to analyze the data, identify best practices and areas for improvement, and disseminate them across the collaborative.

The Michigan Spine Surgery Improvement Collaborative (MSSIC) brings orthopedic surgeons and neurosurgeons together to study ways to improve spine surgery outcomes in Michigan. Participants aim to improve the quality of care of spine surgery, reduce surgical complications, improve patient functional outcomes, reduce costs and episodes of care, and reduce the need for repeat surgeries.

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The Michigan Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons quality initiative aims to reduce the risk of complications and improve treatment for patients undergoing cardiothoracic surgery, general thoracic surgery and perfusion treatment.

The Michigan Trauma Quality Improvement Program aims to address inconsistencies and variations in patient outcomes related to trauma-based care. It focuses on quality improvement in high-impact areas such as blood clot prevention and bleeding control. MTQIP comprises 35 Level I and II trauma centers in Michigan and over 300,000 patient admissions.

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The Michigan Urological Surgery Improvement Collaborative works to improve the quality of urologic care for patients in Michigan. Ninety percent of the urologists in the state participate, as well as 14 patient advocates who serve as the moral compass for all the collaborative’s quality improvement activities.

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MVC represents a partnership between more than 100 Michigan hospitals and 40 physician organizations (POs) that helps members better understand their performance using high quality robust multi-payer data, customized analytics, and at-the-elbow support. MVC offers access to a data registry with information on over 40 different medical and surgical conditions, allowing members to benchmark their care utilization to the state, track changes over time, and identify areas of cost opportunity. MVC also fosters a collaborative learning environment to enable providers to learn from one another in a cooperative, non-competitive space.

The Obstetrics Initiative (OBI) works to improve maternity care by supporting vaginal delivery and safely lowering the use of Cesarean sections among low-risk patients. Comprised of 75 participating Michigan maternity hospitals, participants work to identify and address variation through collaboration, rapid cycle data reporting, and quality improvement initiatives.

Coordinating Centers 

Nineteen of the CQIs are based at Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan’s academic medical center. Three coordinating centers are at Henry Ford Health.

BCBSM Support

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is a nonprofit mutual insurance company and the largest health insurer in Michigan, serving approximately five million people in the state and across the country. 

Support for the CQIs is provided by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network as part of the BCBSM Value Partnerships program. 

Although BCBSM and the CQIs work collaboratively, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the CQIs do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of BCBSM or its employees.

Media Inquiries

Members of the media are welcome to send inquiries and interview requests.