Performance Budget Submission for Congressional Justification

Each year Federal Agencies must develop and present to Congress their budget requests for the coming Fiscal Year (FY). All requests are in the President's budget, which is presented to Congress in February this year. At the same time, every Agency presents to Congress its own Congressional Justification, which details the Agency's recent accomplishments, how it spent the money that Congress appropriated in the past, and what the Agency hopes to accomplish with the new funds it seeks.

This statement summarizes budget information submitted to Congress for FY 2010 by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). As part of the budget for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the performance budget submission both provides background about AHRQ and lays out future priorities for it.

Background

All Americans benefit from safe, effective, and efficient health care. AHRQ's performance-based budget demonstrates its continued commitment to assuring sound investments in programs within these three areas that will make a measurable difference in health care for Americans. The Agency's mission is to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans. In support of this mission, AHRQ is committed to improving patient safety by developing successful partnerships and generating the knowledge and tools required for long term improvement.

The Fiscal Year 2010 Congressional Justification is one of several documents that fulfill the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS') performance planning and reporting requirements:

• FY 2010 Congressional Justifications and Online Performance Appendixes.
• The Agency Financial Report.
• The HHS Performance Highlights.

The Performance Highlights briefly summarizes key past and planned performance and financial information. The Agency Financial Report provides fiscal and high-level performance results. The FY 2010 Department's Congressional Justifications fully integrate HHS' FY 2007 Annual Performance Report and FY 2010 Annual Performance Plan into its various volumes. The Congressional Justifications are supplemented by the Online Performance Appendixes. Where the Justifications focus on key performance measures and summarize program results, the Appendixes provide performance information that is more detailed for all HHS measures.

Download Information

• Congressional Justification (PDF File, 415 KB).
• AHRQ Performance Appendix, FY 2010 (PDF File, 260 KB).