National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report
Latest available findings on quality of and access to health care
Data
- Data Infographics
- Data Visualizations
- Data Tools
- Data Innovations
- All-Payer Claims Database
- Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP)
- Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)
- AHRQ Quality Indicator Tools for Data Analytics
- State Snapshots
- United States Health Information Knowledgebase (USHIK)
- Data Sources Available from AHRQ
Search
Key Drivers
Change Strategies
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
1 to 10 of 14 Tools and Resources DisplayedRegistries can complement paper records or electronic health records (EHRs), which frequently do not have the functions needed for population management. This resource discusses the advantages and disadvantages of creating and using registries.
Part of an AHRQ curriculum used to train practice facilitators, this resource explains the fundamentals of building and working with quality improvement (QI) teams in primary care practices.
This 2011 report published by the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) recommends standards for developing trustworthy guidelines on care options for health care providers, patients, and organizations.
Practices can use this clinical flowchart to implement the 5As [ask, advise, assess, assist, arrange for follow-up] to help patients quit smoking, based on their readiness to quit.
These dashboards show how one organization tracks progress in integrating Patient and Family Advisors and providing patient- and family-centered care.
In this webinar, American Medical Association (AMA) staff discuss how primary care practices can implement each of the 7 steps for implementing self-measured blood pressure (SMBP): (1) Identify patients for SMBP; (2) Confirm device validation and cuff size; (3) Train patients; (4) Have patients perform SMBP; (5) Average results; (6) Interpret results; and (7) Document plans and communicate to patients.
This handbook provides in-depth information and techniques to help primary care practices use electronic health records and other health IT for quality improvement efforts. The handbook covers the following topics: clinical decision support, patient portals and other technologies, using patient-generated data, clinical quality measures, and risk stratification in primary care. The handbook also features helpful tips, examples, and use cases to support the use of health IT for QI efforts.
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.
In this podcast Dr. Jim Campbell, MD, who leads the Ohio Cardiovascular and Diabetes Health Collaborative, discusses the importance of involving patients in quality improvement projects. The podcast covers how practices can get started, ways to approach patients to participate, and strategies to keep them engaged.
This short article describes four coping stages that organizations go through when metrics show poor performance: denial of the data accuracy, denial there is a problem, deny accountability for the problem, and acceptance of responsibility.