(NCQA: Washington, D.C.) -- The Quality Crossroads Group, a group of stakeholders drawn together to identify strategies to address the complex challenges confronting the United States health care system, recently proposed a five-point agenda that examines quality in patient safety, the uninsured, and the high cost of health care.

The article, "Crossroads in Quality,” published in Health Affairs, states that expanding health insurance coverage is a critical step in health reform, but reforms won’t be successful if they fail to also address the quality and cost of care.

“The future of health care reform rests on the ability for diverse groups, at national, state, and community levels, to work to achieve consensus. We cannot achieve the important policy goals outlined in this paper without collaboration,” says co-author Janet Corrigan, president and CEO of the National Quality Forum.

 “Quality improvement is intricately connected with containing costs and expanding coverage. Yet too often, quality is left out of the equation,” adds co-author Margaret E. O’Kane, president of the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

The reform plan calls for:

• A national center to support effectiveness research

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