While there continues to be a robust and controversial debate on health care reform at the national level, residents of Minnesota should know that their state has been working to reform the way health care is delivered for more than a year now.

A bipartisan plan approved in 2008 set out programs to help cover more people, but also create incentives and programs to lower costs and provide better outcomes. Health care providers, insurance companies and consumers are working together to make it happen.

One of the latest developments in the reform effort allows consumers to compare cost and quality of the health care provider on a Web site: mnhealthscores.org.

There, consumers can see how their clinics fare in their effectiveness at providing the most successful treatments for things like diabetes, asthma, colds and cancer screenings. It also allows consumers to compare the cost of each procedure among providers.

The reform initiative recently received nationwide recognition in The Wall Street Journal. The Journal notes Minnesota has been a leader in measuring the effectiveness of treatments on certain health conditions and providing consumers with information so they can choose the provider who offers best treatment at the most reasonable or lowest cost.

The reform effort also provides for establishment of “health care homes” where a coalition of different providers and specialists and nurses and public health officials coordinate the care of patients. One of these homes was set up in Mankato, with the Mankato Clinic and area providers working together to come up with better, more effective and efficient treatments.

The reform program also requires providers to begin to submit reports on the uniform measurements of quality of care that will be based on medical evidence and input from health care providers. The measurements are required to be reviewed annually, and must be based on outcomes instead of procedures. That data is required to be submitted starting in January.

The standardized set of data for measurement will level the playing field in a way, and insurance companies can not require a provider to submit other information outside of this set as a way to further assess risk or set one health provider against another. The commissioner of health also will require quality reports on each provider by July 2010.

Eventually, the commissioner of health will develop comparisons on cost and quality of providers and starting in Jan. 2011, the state health plan, public insurance programs and local units of government as well as health plan companies must use the tools as incentives for consumers to use the best providers.

The reform effort has so far developed a good amount of support from providers, insurance companies and to some extent the public. Officials behind the effort need to keep the heat on to develop a system of improving quality and keeping costs low. The reform effort in Minnesota may reduce the need for adopting a lot of the federal plan.