AHRQ Views Blog: For American Heart Month, AHRQ Offers New Tools for Expanding Cardiac Rehabilitation

AHRQ Stats: Delivery Stays Involving Mental Health Disorders

One in seven in-hospital delivery stays for non-Hispanic White women included a diagnosis of a mental health disorder in 2020 (14 per 100 delivery stays), the highest rate among any race/ethnicity group. In-hospital delivery stays for Asian/Pacific Islander women included the lowest diagnosis rate, at just 3.6 per every 100 stays (Source: AHRQ Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Statistical Brief #302, Mental Health Disorders Among Delivery Inpatient Stays by Patient Race and Ethnicity, 2020.)

Today's Headlines:

• AHRQ Views Blog: For American Heart Month, AHRQ Offers New Tools for Expanding Cardiac Rehabilitation.
• Low Rates of Mental Health Treatment Continue To Persist Among Black and Hispanic Patients.
• Correlation Found Between Quality of Care and Online Ratings for Assisted Living Communities.
• Research Funding Opportunities From AHRQ.
• Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network.
• 2023 Data Submission for the AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture^™ Databases.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature.

AHRQ Views Blog: For American Heart Month, AHRQ Offers New Tools for Expanding Cardiac Rehabilitation

Training materials recently developed under AHRQ's TAKEheart initiative to help hospitals enroll more heart disease patients in cardiac rehabilitation are highlighted in the most recent AHRQ Views blog. Released during American Heart Month, the blog emphasizes that only about a quarter of eligible patients participate in cardiac rehab despite its potential lifesaving benefits. Additional resources from the agency that address heart health include Tools for Change, a collection of resources to help improve care for patients with heart conditions, and Integrating Cardiovascular Disease Risk Calculators into Primary Care (PDF, ), a guide for assessing patients’ risk of a cardiovascular disease event. These efforts complement AHRQ’s EvidenceNow: Advancing Heart Health project, an initiative to improve care in small- and medium-sized primary care practices. Access the blog authored by Tess Miller, Dr.P.H., acting director of AHRQ’s Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement, and Michael I. Harrison, Ph.D., a senior social scientist in the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement. To receive all blog posts, submit your email address.

Low Rates of Mental Health Treatment Continue To Persist Among Black and Hispanic Patients

Despite attention drawn to structural racism, cultural attitudes and racial-ethnic biases, low rates of mental health treatment among Black and Hispanic people continue to persist, according to an AHRQ study published in Psychiatric Services. Researchers used data from the 2018–2019 AHRQ Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to compare national rates and patterns of use for outpatient mental healthcare among Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White patients. They found that non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic patients are approximately half as likely to receive outpatient mental healthcare as non-Hispanic White patients. In addition, non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic patients are less likely to receive psychotropic medications but are more likely to receive psychotherapy. Achieving equity may necessitate developing culturally centered integrated primary care and specialty mental health services that help nurture trusting patient-provider partnerships in environments that respect and appreciate patients’ ethnic and cultural diversity. Access the abstract.  

Correlation Found Between Quality of Care and Online Ratings for Assisted Living Communities

A study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that residents who live in assisted living communities with high online ratings spent more time at home—and less time in hospitals, nursing homes and other institutional settings—compared with those who live in assisted living communities that had no or low ratings. The study, which included 59,831 Medicare beneficiaries in 12,143 assisted living communities, was based on Google searches conducted on assisted living communities between 2013 and 2017 and linked to 2018–2019 Medicare data.  Assisted living communities are an important and a growing part of the U.S. residential care system. With no state or federal mandatory reporting requirements for assisted living communities, customers make decisions based on price and amenities, not quality, study authors noted. Access the abstract.

Research Funding Opportunities From AHRQ

Health services researchers committed to improving the quality, safety and equity of healthcare can explore a variety of AHRQ funding opportunities to support this work. Notice of Funding Opportunities includes Research Grants (R series), Career Development Awards (K series) and Research Training and Fellowships (T & F series). Current opportunities include:

• Supporting the Management of Substance Use Disorders in Primary Care and other Ambulatory Settings (R18) seeks proposals to support the development of scalable knowledge on how to increase the uptake of evidence-based interventions to prevent, diagnose and treat substance use disorders in the context of person-centered care delivered in primary care. Application deadline: April 14.
• AHRQ Understanding and Improving Diagnostic Safety in Ambulatory Care: Incidence and Contributing Factors (R01) invites proposals focused on understanding and improving diagnostic safety in the heterogenous ambulatory care environment. The agency is interested in learning the incidence and contributing factors of diagnostic error within and across the array of ambulatory care services. Application deadline: April 18.
• AHRQ Improving Diagnostic Safety in Ambulatory Care: Strategies and Preventions (R18) invites proposals focused on understanding and improving diagnostic safety in the heterogenous ambulatory care environment. The agency is interested in providing support designed to develop, test, and evaluate primary care activities that will improve diagnostic safety and quality. Application deadline: April 18.
• Dissemination and Implementation of Equity-Focused Evidence-Based Interventions in Healthcare Delivery Systems (R18) seeks proposals that would use dissemination and implementation science to fill evidence gaps critical to the development, adaption, implementation and evaluation of equity-focused evidence-based interventions to accelerate health equity within healthcare delivery systems. Application deadline: April 21.

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:

• Association between unmet nonmedication needs after hospital discharge and readmission or death among acute respiratory failure survivors: a multicenter prospective cohort study.
• Investigating the impact of structural racism on black birthing people—associations between racialized economic segregation, incarceration inequality, and severe maternal morbidity.
• Intended and unintended consequences: changes in opioid prescribing practices for postsurgical, acute, and chronic pain indications following two policies in North Carolina, 2012-2018—controlled and single-series interrupted time series analyses.

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).

2023 Data Submission for the AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture^™ Databases

Voluntary data submission for AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture^™ (SOPS®) Databases opens June 1–22 for the SOPS Ambulatory Surgery Center Survey and Sept. 1–22 for the SOPS Medical Office Survey. The SOPS program is designed to help healthcare organizations assess how providers and staff perceive various aspects of patient safety culture. Participating organizations will receive a feedback report displaying their results and aggregated results from all database participants. Access general information about the SOPS Databases. For technical assistance on data submission, call 1-888-324-9790 or email DatabasesOnSafetyCulture@westat.com.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Mandatory prescription drug monitoring programs and overlapping prescriptions of opioids and benzodiazepines: evidence from Kentucky. Nguyen T, Meille G, Buchmueller T. Drug Alcohol Depend 2023 Feb 1;243:109759. Epub 2022 Dec 28. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Evaluation of a protocol for eliciting narrative accounts of pediatric inpatient experiences of care. Martino SC, Reynolds KA, Grob R, et al. Health Serv Res 16 Jan 2023. [Epub ahead of print.] Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Cannabis-based products for chronic pain: a systematic review. McDonagh MS, Morasco BJ, Wagner J, et al. Ann Intern Med 2022 Aug;175(8):1143-53. Epub 2022 Jun 7. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Low rates of structured advance care planning documentation in electronic health records: results of a single-center observational study. Wu A, Huang RJ, Colón GR, et al. BMC Palliat Care 2022 Nov 22;21(1):203. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Outcomes associated with rural emergency department provider-to-provider telehealth for sepsis care: a multicenter cohort study. Mohr NM, Okoro U, Harland KK, et al. Ann Emerg Med 2023 Jan;81(1):1-13. Epub 2022 Oct 15. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Association of medical assistant-supported virtual rooming with successful video visit connections. Lieu TA, Warton EM, Levan C, et al. JAMA Intern Med 2022 Jun;182(6):680-2. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

The association of strained ICU capacity with hospital patient racial and ethnic composition and federal relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. Levinson Z, Cantor J, Williams MV, et al. Health Serv Res 2022 Dec;57(Suppl 2):279-90. Epub 2022 Jul 25. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Pre-existing anxiety and depression in injured older adults: an under-recognized comorbidity with major health implications. Ortiz D, Perkins AJ, Fuchita M, et al. Ann Surg Open 2022 Dec 7;3(4):e217. Access the abstract on PubMed®.