National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report
Latest available findings on quality of and access to health care
Data
- Data Infographics
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- Data Tools
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- 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
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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 15 Tools and Resources DisplayedThis workflow shows how medical assistants can provide a check to ensure that evidence-based care is delivered by identifying patients with heart disease who, according to protocol, should have, but have not, been prescribed aspirin.
It is important for primary care team members to feel they can ask for help, try new ways of doing things, and learn from mistakes. This resource provides suggestions for how practices can help quality improvers feel safe.
This is an example template that could be adapted for use in your EHR to ensure a clear understanding of how the patient is monitoring and adhering to recommended treatment for their cardiovascular health, focused on hypertension, cholesterol, and smoking.
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 offers guidance for implementing a training program for medical assistants, with a goal of expanding their roles in delivering evidence-based care and their responsibilities as part of team-based care.
This resource provides an example of how a practice can translate evidence on treatment for hypertension (high blood pressure) into a protocol for the primary care team, highlighting the responsibilities medical assistants can take on.
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.
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 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.
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.