Hospital Resources

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) offers information and tools for clinicians and hospitals to improve quality, efficiency, and patient safety in emergency departments (EDs). These links go to four AHRQ resources to help health providers attain these outcomes.

This document describes the Emergency Severity Index (ESI) triage algorithm, Implementation Handbook, and DVDs. The Emergency Severity Index (ESI) is a five-level emergency department (ED) triage algorithm that provides clinically relevant stratification of patients into five groups from 1 (most urgent) to 5 (least urgent) on the basis of acuity and resource needs. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) funded initial work on the ESI.

Research shows that when patients are engaged in their health care, it can lead to measurable improvements in safety and quality.  To promote stronger engagement, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is developing a guide to help patients, families, and health professionals work together as partners to promote improvements in care.

Findings were used to bring focus to the challenges of evidence-based hospital design and the roles that funders might play in the development and transfer of knowledge related to the constructed hospital environment.

This TeamSTEPPS guide was created to help enhance safety for patients with limited English Proficiency.

AHRQ Quality Indicators (QIs) are measures of hospital quality and safety drawn from readily available hospital inpatient administrative data. Hospitals across the country are using QIs to identify potential concerns about quality and safety and track their performance over time. This toolkit supports hospitals that want to improve performance on the IQIs and PSIs by guiding them through the process, from the first stage of self-assessment to the final stage of ongoing monitoring. The tools are practical, easy to use, and designed to meet a variety of needs, including those of senior leaders, quality staff, and multistakeholder improvement teams.

A variety of forces are pushing hospitals to improve their discharge processes to reduce readmissions. Researchers at the Boston University Medical Center (BUMC) developed and tested the Re-Engineered Discharge (RED). Research showed that the RED was effective at reducing readmissions and posthospital emergency department (ED) visits. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality contracted with BUMC to develop this toolkit to assist hospitals, particularly those that serve diverse populations, to replicate the RED.

Summary of a DVD reviews the case for evidence-based hospital design and how it increases patient and staff satisfaction and safety.

The Project RED (Re-Engineered Discharge) training program is designed to help hospitals re-engineer their discharge process. Using the study modules and supporting materials, hospitals will become familiar with Project RED's processes and components, determine metrics for evaluating impact, and learn how to implement Project RED.