First Choice Health, Woodinville Pediatrics and Dr. John Verilli are latest members to join Puget Sound Health Alliance

Feb. 28, 2005

First Choice Health, Woodinville Pediatrics and Dr. John Verilli are latest members to join Puget Sound Health Alliance

Three more members have joined the Puget Sound Health Alliance (PSHA), a new group committed to improving the quality of health care and holding down its costs in the Puget Sound area. The new members include First Choice Health, Woodinville Pediatrics and Dr. John Verrilli.

The PSHA, initiated by King County Executive Ron Sims, includes members from the region's public and private sectors and range in size from some of the largest corporations and governments to small businesses. The members are working to increase the quality of care delivered throughout King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

The Alliance is the outgrowth of Sims' Health Advisory Task Force, which last year recommended a collaborative regional system be established to harness the collective strength and knowledge of the region and its employers to improve the quality, delivery and cost of health care.

"We joined because PSHA gets that it shouldn't reinvent from scratch; but rather build on the work being done across the country to start to aggregate data from all sources using the same measures of quality and efficiency," said Gary Gannaway, CEO of First Choice Health.

"Woodinville Pediatrics' mission is to provide quality, cost effective patient and family centered care," said Dr. Mitchell Weinberg of Woodinville Pediatrics. "We believe these core values are shared by our new partners in the Puget Sound Health Alliance. Together we will craft a vision of ensuring that effective care is provided to our region now and into the future."

Dr. John Verrilli added, "The Puget Sound Health Alliance has an ambitious goal. The Alliance plans to work with payors (health plans), purchasers and providers to make health care more cost effective, and efficient while retaining the high quality we have come to expect in Washington."

In addition to the new members announced today, PSHA participants include King County, Starbucks, Washington Mutual, State of Washington, Group Health Cooperative, City of Seattle, Puget Sound Energy, Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI), Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle Surgery Center, Regence BlueShield, Community Health Plan of Washington, Hope Heart Institute, The Polyclinic, Port Blakely Companies, Pierce County, Qualis Health, the Foundation for Health Care Quality, Pacific Medical Centers, Dr. Peter Dunbar, the King County Medical Society, The Everett Clinic, the City of Everett and the Washington State Pharmacy Association.

The organization's goals are to: improve the quality of care; slow the rate of increase in health care expenditures in the Puget Sound region; improve the health outcomes for people; improve consumers' and health care professionals' ability to become partners in managing health; and ensure collaborative decision-making based on evidence.

Please contact Rachel Quinn, 206-296-4165, for more information about the Puget Sound Health Alliance.