National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report
Latest available findings on quality of and access to health care
Data
- Data Infographics
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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
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- 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.
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1 to 10 of 17 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.
Registries 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.
A training checklist to ensure that staff have learned how to measure blood pressure accurately.
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.
This modifiable flow chart allows practices to adapt steps to reflect the practice’s preferred protocol for controlling hypertension in adult patients, including blood pressure goals and medication names.
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.
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, Jim Campbell, MD, explores practical tools for implementing quality improvement activities and creating and sustaining a culture of quality in your organization.