WHIO Wins The Alliance 2020 Health Transformation Award

MADISON, WI. (October 2, 2020) – At The Alliance Fall Symposium & Annual Meeting, on October 1, 2020, the Wisconsin Health Information Organization (WHIO) was given a Health Transformation Award by The Alliance in recognition for its significant contributions to transforming health care.

WHIO helps improve the value of health care through its All-Payer Claims Database (APCD), an information resource that is used to identify and address variations in the quality, safety and efficiency of care. The non-profit organization provides a unique and valuable perspective on health care by sharing important data and informational insights that are otherwise unavailable.

The Alliance presented the Health Transformation Award to WHIO during its 30th anniversary celebration of their Fall Symposium & Annual Meeting, where innovative health care leaders shared their expertise on crucial health care topics, including payment reform, transparency, and benefit plan design. The event annually attracts an audience of employers and health care providers as well as brokers, agents, and other professionals who support employers that self-fund their health benefits.

Health Transformation Award recipients must demonstrate their commitment to promoting change in the health care marketplace based on one or more of the following criteria:

• High-Value Health Care
  • Is taking action to significantly improve the quality and/or affordability of health care
• Transparency
  • Is achieving significant gains in the availability and/or use of meaningful information to compare price and quality
• Payment Reform
  • Is developing, testing or implementing value-based payment approaches to encourage high-quality, affordable care
• Provider Network Design
  • Is developing, testing or implementing approaches to make high-value health care providers easily accessible to employees
• Benefit Plan Design
  • Is developing, testing or implementing approaches to support the appropriate use of high-value providers and treatments by consumers

As Wisconsin’s APCD, the WHIO information system includes represents about 4.5 million insured individuals in Wisconsin and about $50 billion in billed charges annually. The WHIO information system obtains claims data from commercial health plans, self-funded employers, Medicare and Medicaid, cleans and integrates the data, and then organizes it into high-quality, accessible, and user-friendly products. The WHIO data and information is used by health systems to benchmark and improve the care they deliver. It also helps health plans and employers identify high-value providers to include in networks and feature in benefit plans.

The Alliance serves as the voice for self-funded employers who are unsatisfied with traditional health care and want more control over their costs by providing transparent, creative approaches to network and benefit plan design to unlock savings where others can’t – or won’t – using Smarter NetworksSM and sophisticated data mining and analysis.

Celebrating 30 years as a mission-driven, not-for-profit cooperative, The Alliance is employer-owned and remains a trusted, objective partner for employers and their brokers who seek improved access to high-quality healthcare, working with more than 275 employers across the Midwest, and contracting with over 34,000 health care providers and specialists in the region.

We can connect journalists with award winners, CEO/President, and The Alliance Board of Directors upon request.