In June 2016, faculty at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine created the High Value Practice Academic Alliance (HVPAA) so that medical institutions working to improve health care value, defined as higher quality care at a lower cost, could align efforts to lead broad scale improvements. This program grew from a campaign in the Johns Hopkins University Graduate Medical Education Committee to engage trainees in value-based quality improvement work, led by Roy Ziegelstein, MD, Vice Dean for Education and former DIO, Julia McMillan, MD. Recognizing that many other medical centers were implementing initiatives to improve health care value, Dr. Ziegelstein and high value champions Pamela T. Johnson, MD, Leonard Feldman, MD and Amit Pahwa, MD wanted to create an information sharing platform to efficiently and effectively advance value improvement on a national scale, with an annual national conference at the core of the organization. Teaching medical centers (any medical center with students or trainees) were invited to join as institutional or departmental members with approval from respective leadership. The HVPAA kick-off in January 2017 generated tremendous enthusiasm and growth with more than 200 faculty leaders from 100 medical centers and 30 medical specialties/subspecialties are participating in the organization. After 5 years of successful collaboration, we opened membership to any medical center in the country as the High Value Practice Alliance, to engage practices, hospitals and systems in all settings in our information exchange network.
Drs. Feldman, Pahwa and Johnson also lead the Johns Hopkins Health System High Value Care Committee. In 2017, Johns Hopkins Hospital recognized their work by selecting the team for the Innovations in Clinical Care Award. In 2018, the Johns Hopkins Health System High Value Care Committee was been recognized by the Society of Hospital Medicine Award for Teamwork in Quality Improvement. In 2020, Dr. Johnson was appointed Vice President of Care Transformation for the Johns Hopkins Health System.
