Healthcare Glossary

Quality Quest for Health of Illinois

Authors - Dr. Gail Amundson

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Dr. Gail Amundson

As President and CEO of Quality Quest for Health of Illinois, Gail Amundson, MD, FACP, leads its mission to achieve exceptional patient service and outcomes by serving as a catalyst for healthcare transformation. A healthcare collaborative for the state of Illinois, Quest is focused on healthy people and high value healthcare.

Poised for dramatic change, healthcare needs a strong foundation of evidence-based care standards, measurement, reporting of performance and clinician leadership. Quality Quest for Health of Illinois is committed to working jointly with clinicians, employers, payers and patients to affect lasting, healing change in healthcare.

Dr. Amundson is a recognized leader and innovator. She served as HealthPartners Medical Director for Quality, Measurement and Provider Incentives, where she was effective working with and motivating physicians throughout Minnesota to improve patient outcomes. Her pioneering measurement work is endorsed in the Institute of Medicine Report Performance Measurement: Accelerating Improvement. Her program won The National Quality Forum prestigious 2007 NQF Healthcare Quality Award and The National Business Group on Health 2006 Award for Excellence and Innovation in Value Purchasing. Dr. Amundson is a principle founder of MN Community Measurement, a statewide collaborative reporting quality information of provider groups (http://www.mnhealthcare.org). She served as co-chair of the Minnesota Bridges to Excellence Guiding Coalition and received the inaugural Minnesota Community Measurement 2007 Quality Measurement Leadership Award.

Dr. Amundson is board certified in internal medicine and holds a certificate of added proficiency in geriatrics. She serves on the National Quality Forum (NQF) Consensus Standards Approval Committee, the American College of Physicians Subcommittee on Performance Measurement, and the NQF Composite Measures Steering Committee. She has served on committees for the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the Joint Commission, the American Medical Association Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement, and the National Breast Cancer Coalition Fund. Dr. Amundson is a sought-after public speaker on healthcare transformation, measurement, public reporting and provider incentives. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians.

Education

Bachelor of Arts in Molecular Biology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Doctor of Medicine, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, Madison
Internship at Abbott-Northwestern Hospital, Minneapolis, Minn.
Residency at University of Minnesota Hospitals and Clinics, Minneapolis, Minn.

Articles Written


Evidence is information that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion.  In the field of health, Evidence is collected in an orderly way to help us understand what to do.  This information can come from medical research.
Payers comprise the entity that assumes the risk of paying for medical treatments. Examples include uninsured patients, self-insured employers, health plans or HMOs.
A Provider is a professional engaged in the delivery of health services, including physicians, dentists, nurses, podiatrists, optometrists, clinical psychologists, etc. Hospitals and long-term care facilities are also Providers. The Medicare program uses the term "Provider" more narrowly, to mean participating institutions: hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, etc.
A Provider is a professional engaged in the delivery of health services, including physicians, dentists, nurses, podiatrists, optometrists, clinical psychologists, etc. Hospitals and long-term care facilities are also Providers. The Medicare program uses the term "Provider" more narrowly, to mean participating institutions: hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, etc.
Medicaid is a health insurance program for lower-income families and the disabled.  It is paid for partly by the federal government and partly by the state in which an individual resides.  The criteria for Medicaid eligibility vary by state.
Medicare is a national health insurance program for people age 65 or older that is paid for by the federal government.  Medicare has four parts.  Part A helps cover the basic costs of medical care, surgery, and mental hospital care.  Part B is extra insurance, and while the government pays for part of it people in the program pay insurance premiums, too.  Part C is a choice to get Parts A and B through a private insurance plan.  Part D helps cover prescription drug costs.  Medicare is considered an entitlement program, since anyone age 65 or older is eligible, and currently covers over 40 million people in the United States.
A Provider is a professional engaged in the delivery of health services, including physicians, dentists, nurses, podiatrists, optometrists, clinical psychologists, etc. Hospitals and long-term care facilities are also Providers. The Medicare program uses the term "Provider" more narrowly, to mean participating institutions: hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, etc.