Changes in the 2004 Report

There are two substantial changes in this year's report that were undertaken to enhance its readability and utility. The first is a focus on highlight measures with in-depth analysis, rather than broad, but sparse, coverage of all 179 measures. The second is a shift in presentation toward less narrative and more charts with bulleted key findings. Note that data for all the measures are included in tables at the end of each section. Other changes include:

• An improved online version of the report, including easier access to tables and hyperlinks to data and sources (www.qualitytools.ahrq.gov).
• The addition of summary measures in many areas. Summary measures as used in the report are either summarizations of information across multiple measures (i.e. median change across a set of measures) or a composite measure assessing the percent of patients who received a range of recommended interventions (i.e. the percent of patients who received all recommended diabetes management interventions.)
• An addition of 31 new measures, deletion of 9 measures, and changes to 19 measures. These measure updates respond to new science and consensus on health care quality measures for clinical conditions like diabetes, heart disease, respiratory disease, and other priority areas.
• Additional derivative products including workbooks and fact sheets, in both printed and online format, that focus on cross-cutting and important issues of health care quality.

Additional detail on these changes is presented below.

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