The Alliance for Medical Excellence (Alliance) is a group of health care professionals and volunteers who meet to develop initiatives on a broad range of health care-related topics. Under the leadership of CCME Board members Thelma Cumbo Lennon, EdM, in North Carolina and Bill Smith, PE, in South Carolina, members of this group will work to empower health care consumers in the Carolinas to ask for better quality care and to become active partners in their own care.

Members of the Alliance will encourage all health care consumers in the Carolinas to:

• Use published health care performance data to make better-informed health care decisions and to learn how to ask for better quality health care.
• Ask their physicians about their readiness in using electronic health records (EHRs).
• Take advantage of preventive services, especially those covered by Medicare (such as immunizations, mammograms, diabetes screenings and “Welcome to Medicare” exams).
• Learn more about CCME and how to become our partner in quality improvement.
• Work to improve the quality of mental health services, education, and awareness.

For more information on the Alliance, contact Melinda Postal at mpostal@thecarolinascenter.org.

The mission of the Alliance will complement that of CCME: to empower health care consumers to make better informed health care choices and to urge all Carolinians to become partners in their own health care. Ultimately, the Alliance will positively impact the quality of care and quality of life for health care consumers in the Carolinas.