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The Pennslyvania Health Care Quality Alliance (PHCQA) is a nonprofit group of heathcare organizations, including the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, which represents more than 225 hospitals and health systems across the state.

Company history
Founded in January 2007, PHCQA originally began as an unincorporated association focused on developing alignment and agreement between payers and providers on hospital quality measures for accountability and performance assessment.

The first PHCQA Progress and Performance Report on hospital quality was published in March 2008 and in October 2008 became one of only 3 states to make 'all-or-none' composite scores of hospital performance (Appropriate Care Scores) available on a public website. In December of 2008, PHCQA formally incorporated as a Pennsylvania nonprofit organization.

In 2009 and 2010, PHCQA continued to work on enhancing and updating measures as additional consensus-based definitions of health care quality measures and standards were developed. PHCQA also supported various statewide quality improvement efforts via its online infrastructure (data portal and performance reporting).

In 2011, PHCQA positioned itself to begin reporting ambulatory care measures and expand its membership base. It also continued to support hospitals as they prepare for value-based purchasing and focus on reducing hospital-acquired conditions.

Social mission
The mission of the Pennsylvania Health Care Quality Alliance (PHCQA) is to improve the quality of patient health by encouraging the use of measures that will help providers to evaluate and improve the quality of their patient care, enable consumers to access and compare provider performance, and help insurers evaluate the performance of their provider networks.

The Pennsylvania Health Care Quality Alliance website provides free, detailed reports of hospital performance based on widely-recognized and established quality measures designed to be accessible to everyone. Users can find data on up to 39 different health care quality and experience measures, as reported by general acute care hospitals throughout Pennsylvania, and determine how hospitals compare with another and against state and national averages.

Subsidiaries and affiliates
Participating organizations include:


 * Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP), which represents more than 225 hospitals and health systems across the state
 * Delaware Valley Healthcare Council of HAP
 * Hospital Council of Western Pennsylvania
 * Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania
 * Capital BlueCross
 * Highmark
 * Independence Blue Cross
 * Geisinger Health Plan
 * UPMC Health Plan
 * Pennsylvania Medical Society
 * Pfizer
 * Pennsylvania Organization of Nurse Leaders
 * Representatives from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.