Four healthcare organizations will test and shape a new outcomes-focused approach to supporting primary care operations and innovation.
WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESS Newswire / March 4, 2026 / The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) today announced the launch of its Advanced Primary Care Pilot Program, a new initiative designed to modernize how primary care is defined, measured and supported at a moment when the field faces unprecedented strain. The four healthcare organizations selected through a competitive national process to participate include Aledade, Bluegrass Community Health Center, Jefferson Health and NYC Health + Hospitals. These organizations were chosen for their readiness to advance primary care innovation and their commitment to improving care for the communities they serve.
"Primary care is the foundation of a high-performing healthcare system, yet practices nationwide face mounting pressure from workforce shortages, uneven reimbursement, and increasingly complex patient needs," said Dr. Vivek K. Garg, President and CEO of NCQA. "This new pilot program is about answering a fundamental question: 'What does great primary care need to succeed today?' We're grateful to have primary care partners who are already innovating in this space and who will help us create a high-impact set of standards and measures that focus on what matters most to patients, practices and payers."
Building on lessons from NCQA's Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) program, pilot participants will evaluate draft standards that emphasize proactive population health, behavioral health integration, strong care team coordination and data-enabled decision-making. They will test the standards in real-world settings, report electronic clinical quality measures and participate in a mock survey to inform future program design. The goal of the pilot is to create a clearer path to integrated, data-driven team-based care that enables primary care to thrive in advanced payment models and strengthens the relationship between payers and primary care.
"True systemic change in health care starts and ends with primary care," said Farzad Mostashari, MD, co-founder and CEO of Aledade. "Every day, we see how primary care practices transform lives when they are empowered with the right data and a true value-based model. Through this effort we are proud to bring our decade of experience to help shape a quality standard that emphasizes what actually matters for primary care: preventing illness, serving communities, and delivering better care at a lower cost for everyone."
"Bluegrass Community Health Center appreciates the opportunity to collaborate with NCQA on the Advanced Primary Care Pilot. As an FQHC, we are committed to models that recognize the depth of our work while remaining practical and sustainable," said Brandy Coyle, MBA, BS, RN, Chief Compliance Officer at Bluegrass Community Health Center. "This pilot is an exciting opportunity to help shape a meaningful, usable program that supports primary care without adding unnecessary burden."
"As a large academic health system, Jefferson Health deeply values primary care as foundational to individual, family, community, and public health across the many communities we serve. Quality measures shape the daily efforts of our clinical teams, and they articulate the value of primary care's complex work to stakeholders within and beyond health care," said Anna Flattau, MD, MS, System Chief for Primary Care and Chair of Family and Community Medicine, Jefferson Health. "We appreciate NCQA's leadership in bringing on-the-ground voices from diverse organizations to help redefine the nation's approach to primary care quality metrics."
At the conclusion of the pilot, the four organizations will be rated on their overall results through a "mock survey" process, and they will make recommendations about how NCQA should adjust and evolve the standards and measures in the future NCQA will release findings from the pilot later this year and use participant feedback to refine a new advanced primary care framework designed to strengthen primary care's role within the healthcare system and support practices to thrive within evolved payment arrangements.
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About NCQA
NCQA is an independent nonprofit organization that defines and drives healthcare quality through accreditation, standards, performance measurement, and expert support. For more than 35 years, NCQA has advanced transparency, accountability, and enabled healthcare organizations to deliver better outcomes for patients. NCQA's Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) is one of healthcare's most widely used performance improvement tools. Learn more at ncqa.org. Follow NCQA on X @ncqa and on LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/ncqa.
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SOURCE: NCQA
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:
https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/healthcare-and-pharmaceutical/ncqa-launches-advanced-primary-care-pilot-program-to-redefine-the-fut-1143188
