Farewell Message from Barbra Rabson

On the occasion of MHQP’s 30^th anniversary celebration, I wanted to share the essence of what I believe MHQP brings to the community that has allowed us to have such an important impact over these three decades.

MHQP is focused on the personal and brings out the humanity in us all. Here are five core MHQP values that are particularly important:

1. Mission

We all want to have meaning, to do good in our lives, and be part of something bigger than us, and MHQP’s mission, singularly focused on improving the quality and equity of patients’ experiences of care, helps us feel good about the impact we are having – even as we operate within a very frustrating system. I am filled with pride when MHQP members and staff share with me how meaningful and joyful their work has been with MHQP.

2. Respectful Collaboration

MHQP was launched in 1995 with the vision that healthcare would “measure ourselves and be accountable to the public.”

We understood that nobody really wanted to be measured, yet MHQP kept partners voluntarily coming to the table and participating in MHQP’s measurement work because we had a respectful “Do it with us not to us” approach – we welcomed input and actually listened to what our partners were telling us, which is a very powerful thing.

MHQP’s collaborative approach brought clinicians and health plan leaders together to learn across organizations. This approach, combined with MHQP’s comparative data has been a huge motivating factor for improvement in Massachusetts health care and keeps people coming back to MHQP’s table.

3. Engaging Patients and Amplifying Patient Voices

As a measurement organization, MHQP’s prime focus has always been on measuring patient experiences of care and talking with patients about their care.

As the late Lester Hartman, one of MHQP’s physician champions used to say, “To modify your practice according to what’s best for families, you have to listen to your families.” And MHQP listens.

Not only do we listen to patients, they are at the table and involved in all decision making at MHQP.

4. Innovation

Another reason people are attracted to MHQP is because of our ability to dive into new areas and navigate an innovative way forward.  I believe our ability to innovate is because we are constantly listening to patients and clinicians and payers about what they are encountering, and that gives us a deeper and early understanding of problems and potential solutions.

30 years ago, when MHQP was launched with a commitment to produce valid measures of quality, that was six years before the Institute of Medicine came out with their landmark Crossing the Quality Chasm report in 2001 that defined quality. MHQP was doing pioneering work in quality measurement from our early years, and we have continued to lead for three decades, noted by MHQP’s many first-in-the-nation milestones.

This has driven MHQP’s national reputation and impact far beyond Massachusetts, as other states use MHQP as a model.

5. Recognizing the Importance of Our Clinician Workforce

And lastly, some of MHQP’s most recent and public-facing work has been on the health of our clinician workforce. The COVID pandemic was devastating to an already fragile primary care system. But no one was tracking the health of primary care. MHQP stepped up. We pivoted from measuring the performance of primary care to measuring the health of primary care. This is a powerful distinction that put MHQP in a national conversation that reminds us what Atul Gawande observed years ago: primary care is the crucial, heroic backbone of a functional health system and it is our responsibility to support a strong primary care system.

The primary care relationship is key to the experiences of our patients and strengthening primary care and improving patient experiences go hand-in-hand.

In closing, the world has thrown us many unexpected challenges and MHQP has evolved to face these challenges. As we look to the future, I know MHQP has a crucial role to play as a champion of improving the quality and equity of patient experiences in Massachusetts.

It has been the honor of my life to lead MHQP. As I reflect on my nearly three decades at the organization, and my unwavering belief that we are stronger together, I think about how grateful I am to all the incredible leaders who influenced me and MHQP and made the organization what it is today. I am very grateful to you, and I look to you for your continued support for MHQP.  Thank you.

– Barbra G. Rabson