RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – The Department of Health and Human Services plans to expand a nationwide network of local organizations, called chartered value exchanges (CVEs), that will have access to Medicare data for reporting care and cost outcomes to the public.

At an Aug. 12 town hall meeting co-hosted by the North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance, Inc., HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt said he would like to increase CVEs from the current 14 to 25 by year’s end.  

Upon Leavitt’s prompting, the NCHICA has passed a resolution to establish the first CVE in North Carolina.

Leavitt said CVEs would help change the U.S. healthcare sector into a healthcare system. “We need national standards, but local control,” he said.

Leavitt said Medicare is at the heart of America’s healthcare woes because other insurance companies pattern themselves after Medicare. Incentives based on volume, not value, are part of the problem, he said.