As a leader in health care delivery, medical research, and physician and patient education, we at Johns Hopkins Medicine recognize the need to improve the quality of medical practice and reduce the cost of health care by eliminating unnecessary tests, treatments and procedures. High-value health care at Johns Hopkins has quickly advanced from smaller efforts, including Providers for Responsible Ordering and the Department of Medicine’s High Value Care Committee, to a systemwide High Value Care Committee and a new national academic coalition.

The future of medicine rests on our students and trainees. We are engaging trainees in clinical, research and educational initiatives to promote value-based practice through the efforts of the High Value Practice Alliance. The Choosing Wisely campaign, initiated by the ABIM Foundation, defined specialty-based tests and procedures to target for reduction. Forty such clinical initiatives have been embraced by our residency and fellowship programs.

By measuring the outcomes of our current practices, we can improve our decision-making and achieve greater value for our patients. The first Johns Hopkins High Value Practice Symposium was held in February 2016. It featured more than 50 Johns Hopkins initiatives, highlighted efforts across The Johns Hopkins Hospital to increase the value of care we deliver to patients and created new networks for future projects.

We now have invited all academic medical centers across the country to join us in the High Value Practice Academic Alliance, a consortium working to advance high-value medical practice through cross-institutional quality improvement, research, and education related to high value health care. At the core of this initiative is an annual High Value Practice Academic Alliance national research symposium. By aligning our efforts to advance high value practice, we can improve the value of health care delivered to patients across the United States.