AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange Focuses on Improving Health Through Clinical-Community Collaboration

The latest issue of AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange features three programs that provide successful examples of clinical–community collaboration to improve health. One of the featured profiles describes a multi-stakeholder community collaborative in New York. The Rochester Blood Pressure Collaborative encourages and supports the development of programs to improve blood pressure control in metropolitan Rochester, NY. After the collaborative’s members, which include the Rochester Business Alliance and the Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency, defined goals for the program, a series of workgroups designed and supported implementation of initiatives within provider organizations, employers and community-based organizations. Early evidence suggests that this collaborative program has spurred implementation of a variety of promising initiatives at provider, employer and community sites; attracted growing interest from primary care physicians and their patients; and increased the proportion of hypertensive patients who have achieved blood pressure control. Select to access more innovation profiles, tools and resources related to clinical–community collaboration and partnerships on the Innovations Exchange website, which contains more than 800 searchable innovations and 1,550 quality tools.