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 meet quarterly to discuss ways to empower health care consumers in the Carolinas to ask for better quality care and to become active partners in their own care.

Initiatives underway by the Alliance include:

• Using published health care performance data to make better-informed health care decisions and to ask for better quality health care.
• Promoting preventive services, especially those covered by Medicare, including immunizations, mammograms, diabetes screenings, and "Welcome to Medicare" exams
• Learning more about the role of CCME and how to become CCME's partner in quality improvement on issues related to patient safety, care transitions, preventive services, and impelmentation of electronic health records.
• Working to increase knowledge and awareness of health issues at the community level.

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.