AHRQ Annual Highlights, 2008 (continued)

AHRQ's Knowledge Transfer Initiative

As part of its mission to develop programs for disseminating and implementing the results of Agency activities, the Office of Communications and Knowledge Transfer (OCKT) directs a Knowledge Transfer program to promote the use of AHRQ tools, products, and initiatives by various stakeholders. Knowledge Transfer activities consist of a series of projects that disseminate and implement AHRQ products, tools, and research to a specific target audience. The goals are to:

• Enhance awareness about AHRQ's tools, research, and products.
• Increase knowledge about the suite of AHRQ tools available.
• Assist target audiences in the actual implementation of AHRQ tools, research, and products.
• Gain feedback regarding the successes and barriers that organizations are experiencing in implementing AHRQ initiatives.
• Develop case studies showing how target audiences have actually disseminated and implemented specific AHRQ products.

Key Projects in OCKT's Knowledge Transfer Initiative

Pharmacy Suite of Tools—Develop partnerships with key organizations and associations to disseminate and promote products and tools developed from AHRQ's Effective Health Care Program. The project will provide opportunities for stakeholders to offer feedback and nominate topics for future summaries and reports, develop marketing plans, and measure results of efforts.

Purchasers Suite of Tools—Promote selected AHRQ products to purchasers of health care in the private sector and document the impact of using the products. Establish relationships with organizations representing or serving employers, determine the organization's knowledge of AHRQ and its products, and increase uptake of selected AHRQ products by private sector employers.

Long-Term Care Quality Improvement Learning Network—20 long-term care facilities are participating in a high-intensity, quality improvement (QI) learning network. Using the AHRQ Readiness Assessment Tool to establish a QI baseline and to find commonalities among the facilities, nursing homes already engaged in varying levels of QI initiatives will be encouraged to learn new and proven strategies for improving leadership, communication, and teamwork.

Increasing Clinicians Use of Effective Health Care Program Products—Implement an efficient and effective strategy for disseminating Effective Health Care products to clinicians—both Comparative Effectiveness Review executive summaries and Eisenberg Center products (including summary guides for clinicians and consumers, when available).

Quality Indicators Learning Institute—Establish and support a forum for discussing and facilitating the use of the AHRQ QIs in Statewide and regional programs that report hospital quality measures to the public. Institute members are leaders from State agencies/task forces, State hospital associations and/or coalitions that are directly involved with developing public reporting programs.

Medication Adherence—Achieve consensus on a set of messages and an action plan for a sustained public education campaign on medication adherence. Consensus will be sought among representatives of key stakeholder groups, including clinicians, consumers, insurers, businesses, States, pharmacists, drug manufacturers, and others, to review and promote existing AHRQ research and tools related to medication safety and adherence.

Emergency Preparedness Webcasts—Help stakeholders, especially States and communities, find and use AHRQ's emergency preparedness products. The goals of this project are to (1) enhance awareness among key stakeholders about AHRQ's role in the emergency preparedness arena, (2) increase knowledge among decisionmakers about the suite of AHRQ tools available to them, and (3) provide feedback to AHRQ to inform its future educational offerings and outreach efforts.

Electronic Preventive Services Selector (ePSS)—Promote the electronic Preventive Services Selector (ePSS)—an interactive tool designed for use on a PDA or desktop computer to help primary care clinicians identify the screening, counseling, and preventive medication services recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that are appropriate for their patients.

Hospital Product Line—Increase awareness of AHRQ among hospitals and health systems and help hospitals enhance their quality and safety by implementing AHRQ products and tools. Technical assistance is being provided to individual hospitals as well as groups of hospitals in the form of in-person meetings, Web conferences, and conference calls.

Medicaid Care Management Learning Network—Help State Medicaid programs develop strategies for improving the quality of care in the following critical areas: helping patients become active in their care; encouraging provider participation in care management programs, developing program interventions and corresponding measurement strategies that impact patient care; and designing valid, reliable evaluations to determine the program's success. The expertise and lessons learned during this project are shared in the publication Designing and Implementing Medicaid Disease and Care Management Programs: A User's Guide (https://www.ahrq.gov/qual/medicaidmgmt/).

Quality Diagnostic Tools for States—Increase the use of AHRQ's Quality Improvement tools among State policymakers. Activities include workshops, audio and Web conferences, and hands-on technical assistance with individual States to encourage and facilitate use of the tools.

Emergency Preparedness Tools for States—Provide assistance to community planners in three pilot sites to use one or more of AHRQ's products to enhance their overall emergency preparedness planning process, operational effectiveness, and response to public health emergencies. The emphasis is on fostering partnerships and integration among public health departments, hospitals, and health care providers as well as emergency management at the State, regional, and local levels.

Medicaid Medical Directors Learning Network—Provide a forum for clinical leaders of State Medicaid programs to discuss their most pressing needs as policymakers, use relevant AHRQ products and related evidence to address their concerns, and determine their needs for future research. Through this project, they connect with other organizations interested in using evidence-based medicine to make policy decisions that impact Medicaid programs.

Hispanic Elders Learning Network—Support the development of local, evidence-based intervention plans for reducing health disparities and improving the delivery of health care and related aging and social services for Hispanic elders. This project seeks to foster the development of interdisciplinary teams/coalitions in eight communities with large populations of Hispanic elders and link them together in a learning network with a team of national experts in the areas of health disparities measurement, evidence-based programs, community health, and organization.

Elders Prevention Learning Network—Provide technical assistance to six States, i.e., Illinois, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Ohio, to create community-clinician linkages using evidence-based research that demonstrates how to best provide care for the elderly.

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In Conclusion

In fiscal year 2009, AHRQ will continue its mission to improve the quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness of health care in America with a focus on prompt greater uptake and use of its tools and research. The evidence developed through AHRQ-sponsored research and analyses helps everyone involved in patient care make more informed choices about what treatments work, for whom, when, and at what cost. Health care quality is improving, but much more remains to be done to achieve optimal quality. AHRQ will continue to invest in successful programs that develop and translate useful knowledge and tools so that the end result of the Agency's research will be measurable improvements in health care in America through improved quality of care and patient outcomes and value gained for what we spend.

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Appendix

Table 1. Optimizing Prevention and Health Care Management for the Complex Patient, HS08-003

Table 2. Ambulatory Safety and Quality Program: Improving Management of Individuals with Complex Healthcare Needs through Health IT, HS08-002

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