Save the Date for the 2027 Annual Conference – September 27-29, 2027, St. Louis, Missouri
Save the Date for the 2027 Annual Conference – September 27-29, 2027, St. Louis, Missouri
Improving Health Through Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration, Rich Data Insights, Trusted Relationships, and Community Leadership
Improving health outcomes is much more than providing clinical care. Health is shaped by a wide range of factors, including access to care, community conditions, social and economic needs, and the ability of organizations across sectors to work together toward common goals.
As health care continues to shift toward value-based care, accountability for outcomes, and whole-person health, communities need trusted infrastructure that supports, stakeholder alignment, information sharing, and measurement of impact across care and community settings. Federal initiatives led by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), and the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy increasingly recognize the importance of multi-stakeholder and cross-sector collaboration, data sharing, and community partnerships in improving health outcomes.
Across the country, Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs), Regional Health Improvement Collaboratives (RHICs), Community Care Hubs (CCHs), Social Care Networks (SCNs), and other community-centered organizations improve quality, advance patient outcomes, reduce disparities, and address upstream drivers of health through collaboration, stakeholder engagement, and data-informed action.
QIOs, RHICs, Community Care Hubs, and Social Care Networks bring together the people and organizations responsible for improving health and health care in communities. These organizations work together with everyone who gets care, gives care, and pays for care to create the system that everyone needs.
They serve as:
Providing the local, nonprofit, data-driven foundation that enables communities to share information, coordinate services, align stakeholders, and improve health outcomes across sectors.
Bringing diverse stakeholders together around shared priorities and community needs.
Building partnerships across health care, public health, purchasers , social services, and community organizations.
Turning data, evidence, and community insight into action that improves outcomes.
All these organizations support initiatives that help communities:
Health care payment and delivery models continue to evolve beyond fee-for-service toward approaches that reward quality, outcomes, care coordination, prevention, and population health. Across rural and urban communities alike, RHICs, QIOs, Community Care Hubs, Social Care Networks, HIEs, APCDs, and Health Data Utilities provide the infrastructure needed to support this transformation.
These organizations help communities:
Many of these efforts align with CMS and CMMI initiatives designed to improve quality, lower costs, and strengthen person-centered care. New models (TEAM, MAHA ELEVATE, ACCESS, etc.) highlight the growing importance of coordinated care, data sharing, and community partnerships in achieving better outcomes.
For rural communities, these efforts are particularly important. Programs such as the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) and numerous federal rural health initiatives demonstrate the need for locally governed organizations that can support State needs, convene partners, leverage data, and help communities adapt to changing health care delivery and payment models.
Meaningful improvement requires meaningful information. Many RHICs, QIOs, CCHs, and partner organizations leverage claims, clinical, and community health data to identify priorities, measure outcomes, track progress, and evaluate impact. By combining data insights with collaboration and local expertise, these organizations help communities make informed decisions and drive measurable change.
Many organizations also leverage All-Payer Claims Databases (APCDs), Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), Health Data Utilities (HDUs), screening and referral platforms, community resource data, and other shared infrastructure to better understand community needs and measure the impact of interventions.
As communities participate in value-based care programs and alternative payment models, timely access to actionable data becomes increasingly important. Local and state-based data collaboratives help providers, payers, public health agencies, and community organizations understand performance, identify care gaps, monitor social needs, and evaluate outcomes. These capabilities help transform data into actionable intelligence that supports quality improvement, health equity, and accountable care.
An overview of how RHICs serve as trusted, neutral conveners that bring together providers, payers, purchasers, patients, and other stakeholders to improve health care quality, affordability, and outcomes.
Survey findings, highlighting Civitas member perspectives on rural health infrastructure and how they can support states with sustainability, implementation, planning, and evaluation.
Report that aggregates insights from 11 Civitas members who are advancing QIO priorities as prime or subcontractors in the Medicare Quality Improvement Organizations Program.
Catalog of rural-relevant, value-based programs currently or recently implemented by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), primarily by the CMS Innovation Center. Last updated in 2026.
The CMS Innovation Center develops and implements payment and service delivery models and conducts mandated demonstrations to support health care transformation and increase access to high-quality care.
Upstream drivers of health are the social, economic, environmental, and community conditions that influence a person’s health and well-being before they need clinical care. These can include access to nutritious food, stable housing, transportation, education, employment, social connection, and safe communities. Addressing upstream drivers of health means looking beyond medical care to improve the conditions that shape health outcomes, reduce disparities, and support healthier individuals and communities.
Quality Improvement Organizations work with providers, health systems, patients, and communities to improve the quality, safety, and effectiveness of health care through evidence-based improvement initiatives and technical assistance.
A Regional Health Improvement Collaborative is an independent, nonprofit organization that brings together multiple health and health care stakeholders (payers, purchasers, providers, patients, among others) to improve health and health care within a community, region, or state.
RHICs traditionally engage four core health care stakeholder groups, though other community partners are joining the table: 1) Providers, 2) Payers, 3) Purchasers, and 4) Consumers (patients).
Together, these stakeholders work collaboratively to identify priorities and advance solutions that improve health outcomes.
No. RHICs do not provide health care services or pay for care. Instead, they serve as trusted conveners that help stakeholders work together to address community health challenges.
While both support health improvement efforts, QIOs typically focus on quality improvement and performance within health care settings, while RHICs convene stakeholders across sectors to address broader community and system-level challenges.
These organizations help implement evidence-based practices, improve care coordination, support population health initiatives, measure impact, and foster collaboration among stakeholders working to improve health.
QIOs and RHICs partner with health care organizations, public health agencies, community-based organizations, employers, and social service providers to address factors that influence health outcomes beyond clinical care.
A Community Care Hub is a community-centered entity that organizes and supports networks of community-based organizations to deliver services that address health-related social needs. Community Care Hubs help coordinate referrals, service delivery, contracting, and performance measurement across organizations working to improve community health and well-being.
A Social Care Network is a coordinated network of community-based organizations, health care providers, social service agencies, and other partners that work together to connect individuals to services that address social drivers of health, such as food insecurity, housing instability, transportation needs, and other non-medical factors that impact health outcomes.
An All-Payer Claims Database (APCD) is a large-scale data system that collects medical, pharmacy, dental, and eligibility data from multiple health care payers. APCDs help policymakers, researchers, purchasers, providers, and communities better understand health care costs, utilization, quality, and outcomes.
APCDs support a wide range of initiatives, including cost transparency, quality measurement, population health improvement, health care affordability efforts, policy development, and research. Many organizations use APCD data alongside clinical and community data to identify opportunities for improvement and measure impact.
Community Care Hubs and Social Care Networks primarily focus on coordinating community-based services and addressing health-related social needs. While their structures and missions may vary, all of these organizations share a commitment to collaboration, improving outcomes, and advancing community health.
Many use claims, clinical, population health, and community-level data to identify needs, guide improvement efforts, measure outcomes, and support decision-making.
Organizations can participate in quality improvement initiatives, collaborative programs, community partnerships, data-sharing efforts, and other regional health improvement activities led by QIOs and RHICs.
Improving health outcomes requires more than individual organizations acting alone. Local, nonprofit organizations such as RHICs, QIOs, Community Care Hubs, Social Care Networks, HIEs, and other community-based collaboratives provide trusted infrastructure that helps stakeholders work together, share data, coordinate services, measure outcomes, and address community priorities. Their community relationships, neutral convening role, and long-term commitment to local needs make them critical partners in advancing value-based care, improving population health, and addressing upstream drivers of health.
QIOs, RHICs, CCHs, SCNs, HIEs, APCDs, HDUs, and other community-centered organizations demonstrate the power of collaboration, data, and community leadership to improve quality, enhance patient outcomes, and address the factors that influence health.
As health care increasingly moves toward value-based care, whole-person care, and accountable community health models, the need for trusted local infrastructure has never been greater. These nonprofit, community-led organizations provide the partnerships, data capabilities, convening power, and implementation support necessary to translate national priorities into measurable improvements at the local level.
By bringing together those who receive care, provide care, pay for care, and support community well-being, Civitas members are helping communities improve health outcomes, address upstream drivers of health, and build a more connected and sustainable health ecosystem nationwide.