AHRQ Establishes National Nursing Home COVID Action Network

AHRQ Stats

Access more data on this topic in the associated statistical brief.

Today's Headlines:

• AHRQ Establishes National Nursing Home COVID Action Network.
• Practice Facilitation Improved Care for Patients at High Risk for Cardiovascular Disease.
• Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network.
• Register Now for October 19-21 Diagnostic Error Conference Hosted by the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine.
• New Research and Evidence From AHRQ.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature.

AHRQ Establishes National Nursing Home COVID Action Network

In partnership with the University of New Mexico’s ECHO Institute and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), AHRQ has established a National Nursing Home COVID Action Network to prevent infections among nursing home residents and staff. Nursing home residents are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 due to their age, their underlying frailty, and their communal living conditions. And nursing home staff are among the most needed and most at-risk essential workers. The new network is being created under an AHRQ contract worth up to $237 million that is part of the nearly $5 billion Provider Relief Fund authorized earlier this year under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Over 15,000 nursing homes that are certified to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs will be able to participate in a 16-week training program using a standardized curriculum developed by the IHI. The training program will include best practices for using personal protective equipment, COVID-19 testing, clinical management of asymptomatic and mild cases, and other topics. Nursing home teams seeking to participate may sign up on the Project ECHO website. Learn more by accessing the press release and by registering for an informational webinar from 1:30 to 3 ET on Oct. 1.

Practice Facilitation Improved Care for Patients at High Risk for Cardiovascular Disease

Practice facilitation and an electronic health record (EHR) tool substantially improved care among high-risk primary care patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), according to an AHRQ-funded study published in Health Services Research. Researchers analyzed EHRs of nearly 438,000 patients treated at small, rural practices in North Carolina receiving the intervention and found that patients’ average 10-year ASCVD risk score dropped from about 23 percent to about 17 percent over a one-year period. Average risk scores calculate the 10-year risk of patients to have a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular problem. The intervention helped practices calculate ASCVD risk scores for high-risk patients to guide decisions about when to begin and increase medications, such as aspirin and statins, to reduce CVD risk. Greater risk reductions were associated with men, Black patients, patients older than 65 and low-income individuals. The study was funded through AHRQ’s EvidenceNOW: Advancing Heart Health initiative, which helps small and medium-sized primary care practices use patient-centered outcomes research to improve cardiovascular care. Access the abstract.

Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network

AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network (PSNet) highlights journal articles, books and tools related to patient safety. Articles featured this week include:

• Referrals of infection control breaches to public health authorities: ambulatory care settings experience, 2017.
• Retrospective analysis of reported suicide deaths and attempts on veterans health administration campuses and inpatient units.
• Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 among frontline health care personnel in a multistate hospital network--13 academic medical centers, April-June 2020.

Review additional new publications in PSNet’s current issue or access recent cases and commentaries in AHRQ’s WebM&M (Morbidity and Mortality Rounds on the Web).

Register Now for October 19-21 Diagnostic Error Conference Hosted by the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine

Register now for the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine’s Diagnostic Error in Medicine 13th Annual International Conference (SIDM2020), which will take place virtually Oct. 19-21. The conference theme is Transforming Education & Practice to Improve Diagnosis, and continuing education credits are available. The conference will feature the latest research in improving diagnosis; strategies to improve, teach and assess clinical reasoning skills; and practice improvement strategies to reduce harm from diagnostic errors. In addition, SIDM will be hosting a free patient summit, Disparities in Diagnosis in the Time of COVID-19: A Multicultural Perspective. Access more information on agendas and the patient summit.

New Research and Evidence From AHRQ

• Technical Brief (draft report open for comment): Interventions To Decrease Hospital Length of Stay.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

National partnership to improve dementia care in nursing homes campaign: state and facility strategies, impact, and antipsychotic reduction outcomes. Crystal S, Jarrín OF, Rosenthal M, et al. Innov Aging 2020 Jun 2;4(3):igaa018. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Large-scale empirical optimisation of statistical control charts to detect clinically relevant increases in surgical site infection rates. Ilieş I, Anderson DJ, Salem J, et al. BMJ Qual Saf 2020 Jun;29(6):472-81. Epub 2019 Nov 8. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Unmet social needs and no-show visits in primary care in a US Northeastern Urban Health System, 2018-2019. Fiori KP, Heller CG, Rehm CD, et al. Am J Public Health 2020 Jul;110(S2):S242-s50. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

The role of data and safety monitoring boards in implementation trials: when are they justified? Fiscella K, Sanders M, Holder T, et al. J Clin Transl Sci 2020 Mar 5;4(3):229-32. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Children with reported penicillin allergy: public health impact and safety of delabeling. Vyles D, Antoon JW, Norton A, et al. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol 2020 Jun;124(6):558-65. Epub 2020 Mar 26. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Effects of a standardized community health worker intervention on hospitalization among disadvantaged patients with multiple chronic conditions: a pooled analysis of three clinical trials. Vasan A, Morgan JW, Mitra N, et al. Health Serv Res 2020 Oct;55(Suppl 2):894-901. Epub 2020 Jul 8. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Analytic and data sharing options in real-world multi-database studies of comparative effectiveness and safety of medical products. Toh S. Clin Pharmacol Ther 2020 Apr;107(4):834-42. Epub 2020 Jan 24. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Patient characteristics associated with choosing a telemedicine visit vs office visit with the same primary care clinicians. Reed ME, Huang J, Graetz I, et al. JAMA Netw Open 2020 Jun;3(6):e205873. Access the abstract on PubMed®.