National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report
Latest available findings on quality of and access to health care
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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
1 to 10 of 16 Tools and Resources DisplayedThis toolkit introduces the ABCS of heart health and provides checklists, action plans, and other instructions to guide primary care practices to implement evidence-based guidelines, transform health care delivery, and improve patients’ heart health.
A training checklist to ensure that staff have learned how to measure blood pressure accurately.
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.
This recorded webinar provides an overview of huddles and details the process for implementing huddles in primary care practices. The video includes concrete examples of how and when to use huddles and why they are beneficial.
This 1-page tool provides advice on how to reach out to patients for follow-up visits or care effectively. It includes examples of outreach messages to patients with hypertension and who smoke.
This Word worksheet helps primary care practices create action plans for implementing evidence. It has practices identify improvements they want to make; set measurable, realistic (i.e., SMART) goals; and list testable changes to achieve them.
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 section of the Web-based Primary Care Team Guide outlines how primary care practice teams can improve the quality of patient care. It contains four action steps to assess the need for and pilot changes using teams.
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, Jim Campbell, MD, explores practical tools for implementing quality improvement activities and creating and sustaining a culture of quality in your organization.