Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) signature effort to lift the overall quality of health care in targeted communities, reduce racial and ethnic disparities and provide models for national reform. AF4Q asks the people who get care, give care and pay for care to work together toward common, fundamental objectives to lead to better care. The $300 million commitment to improve health care in 16 communities, that together cover 12 percent of the U.S. population, is the largest effort of its kind ever undertaken by a U.S. philanthropy.

Each of the Aligning Forces communities has built its initiative around a core, multi-stakeholder leadership alliance working to advance the goals and activities of AF4Q at the local level. These alliances include participation from physicians, nurses, patients, consumers and consumer groups, purchasers, hospitals, health plans, safety net providers and others.

Working in partnership with RWJF to manage the activities of AF4Q is a national program office (NPO) located at the Center for Health Care Quality at The George Washington University Medical Center School of Public Health and Health Services. The NPO oversees and directs assistance to the communities participating in the initiative. « less