President's Perspective – Healthworks Facilitates Collaboration and Innovation to Improve Health
(March 21, 2025) – Healthworks is important in helping the Kansas Hospital Association achieve its mission and vision. While both organizations share a common vision of Optimal Health for Kansans and Kansas Hospitals, the mission of Healthworks is To facilitate collaboration and innovation to improve health. Healthworks educates partners, brings groups together and finds funding to provide services to change health care for the better.
Healthworks has a variety of programs to assist KHA members. We are excited about a new effort to provide tools and resources for hospitals related to grant writing. We know how important supplemental funding can be when margins are tight. Other projects we have worked on include preparing for rural emergency hospitals, providing benchmarking tools, supporting improvement in Critical Access Hospital finance and operations, assisting hospitals with accessing broadband connectivity, developing the future workforce and providing scholarships to hospital employees.
I want to take a moment to highlight one of Healthworks' programs, QHi. This program began as a collaborative effort with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, the Kansas Hospital Association and the Kansas Hospital Education and Research Foundation (now Healthworks) using Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program grant funds. QHi continues to be sustained by the Kansas Office of Rural Health, state and network partners and individual participants. It has been managed by Healthworks since 2003.
Rural hospitals rely on QHi to assess performance and identify improvement opportunities across hundreds of financial, clinical quality, workforce and patient satisfaction indicators. Today, more than 250 hospitals and 37 clinics in 10 states use QHi to compare performance measures with others, learn about proven practices and implement change where improvement is needed.
The financial indicators area of QHi has had many recent updates, including the 10 measures that make up the Financial Outlook Measure set. These measures mirror the measures considered in many national reports showing hospitals' financial distress. While those studies look at historical information, QHi allows you to compare these measures in real time with your peers. This information can help guide decision-making and strategic planning. KHA also can use this aggregate information to continue educating policymakers on Kansas hospitals' financial health. This information is more valuable than ever for hospitals and the association in today's environment. I encourage you to consider utilizing this free tool to monitor your performance if you are not already doing so.
Healthworks uses their time, energy and resources to inspire action. QHi is just one great example of how they do that. Thanks to everyone who continues to support Healthworks by participating in their projects. The Healthworks Board is currently reviewing priorities, and we look forward to bringing you even more opportunities.
--Chad Austin