National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report
Latest available findings on quality of and access to health care
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Key Drivers
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EvidenceNOW: Tools and Resources
The Agency for Healthcare and Quality (AHRQ) offers practical, research-based tools and other resources to help a variety of health care origanizations, provider, and others make care safer in all health care settings. AHRQ's evidence-based tools and resources are used by organizations nationwide to improve the quality, safety, effectiveness, and efficiency of health care. Improving health care quality by increasing the capacity of small primary care practices to implement the best clinical evidence is our aim. These tools and resources can be searched by the key drivers and the change strategies of the EvidenceNOW Key Driver Diagram.
Results
51 to 60 of 79 Tools and Resources DisplayedThis resource is an example of a policies and procedures statement for a Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) for primary care practices and outpatient clinics.
A video story of Willie Morgan, a patient, who talks about the importance of working closely with his pharmacist to manage his chronic conditions. The Tennessee Heart Health Network disseminates patient stories in their newsletters to healthcare professionals and shares them with their Patient Advisory Councils to support patient engagement in quality improvement.
This resource provides clinicians with useful tools to: (1) assess the current physical activity levels of their patients; (2) emphasize with patients the value of long-term exercise and activity for improved health; (3) help patients find activity options that are safe, sustainable, and as enjoyable as possible; and (4) summarize exercise recommendations for heart health and maintaining weight loss.
Primary care practice staff can fill out this one-page checklist before a patient visit to highlight essential information about that patient’s ABCS status and flag upcoming care needs in the electronic health record (EHRs).
This practical guide shows practices how to start forming partnerships with patients and family advisors (PFAs) to improve primary care. It provides practice assessment, progress tracking, and PFA recruitment and selection tools.
Based on Lean structured problem-solving methods, this tool uses root cause analysis, diagramming process changes, and measuring implementation progress and effectiveness of changes to help primary care practices maximize efficiency and good outcomes.
This primer includes short descriptions of the following continuous quality improvement (QI) approaches: Model for Improvement, Lean, Six Sigma, and the Baldridge Quality Model.
This tool provides a sample protocol for assigning new patients to primary care providers to maintain an organized patient panel. This empanelment process can be adapted as needed by practice staff.
This case study of a primary care practice provides insight into the clinic’s quality improvement project to improve blood pressure control. It highlights the steps in the quality improvement (QI) process, future measures, and lessons learned.
This toolkit consists of 10 tools and templates—with instructions and examples—for primary care practices to use to improve quality. Tools include: cause and effect diagram, failure modes and effects analysis, histogram, Pareto chart, and scatter diagram.