The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation's largest philanthropy organization devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, has announced it will fund the Puget Sound Health Alliance with $1 million and significant technical assistance in order to improve health care quality. The initiative is part of a larger project, which seeks to give $300 million over four years to 14 sites across the country.

“Across America, there are serious gaps between the healthcare that people should receive and the care they actually receive. Despite having the most expensive healthcare system in the world, patients are subject to too many mistakes, too much miscommunication and too much inequity,” Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and chief executive officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said in a statement.

The program called Aligning Forces for Quality is intended to dramatically improve the quality of health care, reduce racial and ethnic disparities and provide models for national reform. More exactly, the money will be used to support and encourage doctors in improving care quality, to give patients more information to manage their own health and make informed decisions, to reduce inequalities in patient care and to support hospitals in improving care, particularly focusing on the central role of nurses.

According to recent statistics, an inefficient health care system has often led to diagnosing women with late-stage breast cancer because they didn’t get mammograms when needed. Also, uncontrolled diabetes has often led to people facing amputations.

According to researchers at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, such complications vary greatly by race and region, with African Americans losing legs to amputations nearly five times as often as whites.

States included in the program are Ohio, Michigan, California, Missouri, Maine, Tennessee, Minnesota, Washington, Pennsylvania, New York, Oregon and Wisconsin.