AHRQ Views Blog: Healthcare, Climate Change, Environmental Justice and AHRQ

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Access more data on this topic in the associated statistical brief, plus additional AHRQ data infographics.

Today's Headlines:

• AHRQ Views Blog: Healthcare, Climate Change, Environmental Justice and AHRQ.
• Spanish Version of QuestionBuilder App Aimed at Increasing Latinos' Access to Care.
• Highlights From AHRQ's Patient Safety Network.
• Practice Facilitation Can Support Independent Primary Care Providers in Rural Areas .
• Clinical Pathways, Case Management Found To Reduce Hospital Length of Stay.
• New Research and Evidence From AHRQ.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature.

AHRQ Views Blog: Healthcare, Climate Change, Environmental Justice and AHRQ

AHRQ’s recently published Request for Information, which asks how the agency can have the greatest impact on addressing climate change, is the subject of a new AHRQ Views blog authored by Acting Director David Meyers, M.D., and Social Science Analyst Brent Sandmeyer, M.P.H. The impacts of climate change on physical and behavioral health place increased demands on healthcare systems as they struggle to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. AHRQ is seeking input on strategies to address climate change and environmental justice through the agency’s core competencies. Specifically, AHRQ aims to help build the healthcare system’s resilience to climate threats, reduce the healthcare industry’s contributions to climate change while increasing sustainability, and address environmental justice. Access the blog post. To receive all blog posts, submit your email address and select “AHRQ Views Blog.”

Spanish Version of QuestionBuilder App Aimed at Increasing Latinos’ Access to Care

AHRQ’s QuestionBuilder app, which helps patients prepare for in-person or telehealth appointments by developing a list of common questions to fit individual needs, is now available in Spanish. QuestionBuilder en Español, released during Hispanic Heritage Month and Health Literacy Month, helps increase equity for Latinos who have limited English proficiency and are more likely to delay care and less likely to have a usual source of care. Users of the app choose questions to ask their doctor, starting with a list of common questions that can be customized to fit individual needs. The app also allows users to input details of their upcoming appointments, such as date and reason for the visit. Through the app, users can email information to themselves or others for reference and make notes during their medical visit. Access English and Spanish versions of the app, as well as a press release.

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:

• Effect of medication reconciliation at hospital admission on 30-day returns to hospital: a randomized clinical trial.
• Association of hospital public quality reporting with electronic health record medication safety performance.
• Misdiagnosis of acute myocardial infarction: a systematic review of the literature.

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).

Practice Facilitation Can Support Independent Primary Care Providers in Rural Areas

Practice facilitation is an effective strategy for increasing quality improvement capacity and improving patient care at independently owned primary care practices in rural areas, according to an AHRQ-funded study published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine. Up to 15 months of practice facilitation support was provided to 135 small or medium-sized primary care practices in Washington, Oregon and Idaho that participated in Healthy Hearts Northwest, one of seven regional cooperatives in AHRQ’s EvidenceNOW: Advancing Heart Health initiative. Researchers reviewed practice data from three cardiovascular risk measures—appropriate aspirin use, blood pressure control and smoking cessation support—at rural and urban primary care practices and determined whether they were independent or owned by a health system. The study found independent, rural primary care practices were more willing to participate in the study, established more quality improvement gains involving multifunctional teams and showed the most improvement in the blood pressure control and smoking cessation measures. Access the abstract.

Clinical Pathways, Case Management Found To Reduce Hospital Length of Stay

Use of "clinical pathways"—evidence-based, structured care plans tailored to individual healthcare providers—and case management were found to be effective in reducing hospital length of stay for people with heart failure, a new AHRQ report has found. In the report, researchers classified what is known about strategies to reduce hospital length of stay. Of the eight strategies they found, researchers found evidence that for people with heart failure, clinical pathways reduced length of stay, readmission and mortality; meanwhile, case management decreased length of stay and readmissions. Evidence for effectiveness of other interventions was generally not robust and often inconsistent, researchers said. Access the report.

New Research and Evidence From AHRQ

• Systematic review: Malnutrition in Hospitalized Adults: A Systematic Review.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Impact of the 2015 Health Information Technology Certification Edition on interoperability among hospitals. Pylypchuk Y, Barker W, Encinosa W, et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2021 Aug 13;28(9):1866-73. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

A web-based tool for quantification of potential gains in life expectancy by preventing cause-specific mortality. Chandran A, Xu C, Gross J, et al. Front Public Health 2021 Jul 1;9:663825. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Influences of physical layout and space on patient safety and communication in ambulatory oncology practices: a multisite, mixed method investigation. Fauer A, Wright N, Lafferty M, et al. HERD 2021 Jun 25 [Epub ahead of print.] Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Incidence, duration, and risk factors associated with missed opportunities to diagnose herpes simplex encephalitis: a population-based longitudinal study. Miller AC, Koeneman SH, Arakkal AT, et al. Open Forum Infect Dis 2021 Sep;8(9):ofab400. Epub 2021 Jul 26. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

The role of commercial health insurance characteristics in bariatric surgery utilization. Chhabra KR, Fan Z, Chao GF, et al. Ann Surg 2021 Jun;273(6):1150-6. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Respiratory viral testing and antibacterial treatment in patients hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia. Klompas M, Imrey PB, Yu PC, et al. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2021 Jul;42(7):817-25. Epub 2020 Dec 1. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Patient and physician perspectives of deprescribing potentially inappropriate medications in older adults with a history of falls: a qualitative study. Hahn EE, Munoz-Plaza CE, Lee EA, et al. J Gen Intern Med 2021 Oct;36(10):3015-22. Epub 2021 Jan 19. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Clinical features and preventability of delayed diagnosis of pediatric appendicitis. Michelson KA, Reeves SD, Grubenhoff JA, et al. JAMA Netw Open 2021 Aug 2;4(8):e2122248.Access the abstract on PubMed®.