Preventing Falls Boosts Patient Safety and Overall Health

Today’s Headlines:

• Preventing Falls Boosts Patient Safety and Overall Health.
• Updated Playbook on Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Now Available.
• New Chartbook Offers Insights From the 2025 Child Hospital Survey.
• MRI Adoption Associated With Fewer Complications in Pediatric Appendicitis.
• Frequent Sink Cleaning Reduces ICU Pathogen Colonization.
• Register for Upcoming Webinars.
• AHRQ Stats: Combined Prevalence of Obesity or Chronic Conditions Among U.S. Adults.  
• New Research and Evidence.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature.

Preventing Falls Boosts Patient Safety and Overall Health

During this Falls Prevention Awareness Week (Sept. 22–26), take a minute to check out AHRQ’s resources to prevent falls. Falls are a leading cause of injury and death for older Americans, threatening seniors’ safety and independence while generating enormous economic and personal costs. AHRQ resources can help, providing concrete guidance on preventing falls:

• Fall TIPS: A Patient-Centered Fall Prevention Toolkit includes a formal risk assessment and tailored plan of care for each patient. The toolkit has been used to reduce falls by 25 percent in acute care hospitals.
• The Falls Management Program: A Quality Improvement Initiative for Nursing Facilities assists nursing facilities in providing individualized, person-centered care and improving fall care processes and outcomes.
• AHRQ’s Safety Program for Nursing Homes: On-Time Falls Prevention helps nursing homes with electronic medical records identify residents at risk for falls. 

Updated Playbook on Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Now Available

The AHRQ Academy’s newly updated Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Playbook (MOUD Playbook) is now live, refreshed with updated and new content to meet the evolving needs of providers and communities tackling the opioid crisis. This essential resource reflects major regulatory shifts, including the removal of the X-waiver requirement, expanded telehealth and payer acceptance, and over-the-counter naloxone availability. It addresses the growing impact of fentanyl and its analogs, adolescent overdose rates, and the experiences of unhoused individuals with OUD.

The updated Playbook emphasizes lifesaving, low-threshold, person-centered care—supporting providers in delivering MOUD despite resistance to counseling or continued substance use. The new Quick Start Guide, enhanced telehealth guidance, references to the latest research and resources, and vignettes from patients and providers with lived experience make the updated playbook more useful than ever for implementing and sustaining evidence-based OUD treatment. Whether you are just beginning your MOUD journey or refining an established program, the MOUD Playbook is your go-to, practical resource for delivering compassionate, effective care. Access the updated MOUD Playbook now.

New Chartbook Offers Insights From the 2025 Child Hospital Survey

Results from AHRQ’s 2025 Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) Child Hospital Survey Database are now available. The CAHPS Child Hospital Survey (Child HCAHPS) assesses inpatient care experiences of pediatric patients (17 and younger) and their parents or guardians. This survey covers many topics addressed by the adult version of the CAHPS Hospital Survey (HCAHPS) and additional topics relevant to pediatric care.

Results from the 2025 Child HCAHPS Survey Database include 8,392 responses voluntarily submitted by 39 hospitals. Survey data were collected from January through December 2024. 

• High-scoring measures: “Communication Between You and Your Child’s Doctors” and “Communication Between You and Your Child’s Nurses.”
• Low-scoring measures: “Preventing Mistakes and Helping You Report Concerns” and “Quietness of the Hospital Room.”

Access the results via the Chartbook (PDF. 2.7 MB) and Infographic (PDF, 1 MB).

MRI Adoption Associated With Fewer Complications in Pediatric Appendicitis

Children with appendicitis had fewer complications when they received care from hospitals that rely on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) rather than computed tomography (CT) for diagnosis, according to an AHRQ-funded study in Hospital Pediatrics. From 2010 to 2023, 155,884 children presented to 46 pediatric emergency departments with appendicitis. For the 19,232 children (12 percent) who visited an MRI-adopting hospital, appendiceal perforation, abscess drainage, and intensive care unit admissions occurred less frequently. Researchers also found that across all 46 emergency departments, CT use declined from 51.5 to 24.9 percent of cases, while MRI use rose from 2 to 8 percent. Pediatric appendicitis diagnosis protocols have shifted to MRI to avoid exposing patients to CT radiation, and these findings support broader adoption of MRI for pediatric appendicitis to improve outcomes and more efficiently use diagnostic resources. Access the abstract.

Frequent Sink Cleaning Reduces ICU Pathogen Colonization

AHRQ-supported researchers found that implementing an intensive care unit sink cleaning intervention 5 days a week using 10 percent bleach wipes to clean sink surfaces, plus pumping pre-acid disinfectants into hospital sink drains, reduced the proportion on Gram-negative bacteria by up to 85 percent. Counts of Pseudomonas spp. and Stenotrophomonas spp., also known as opportunistic premise plumbing pathogens, which can colonize the drains and cause healthcare-associated infections, dropped by up to 100 percent and 95 percent from the baseline when this 5-day-per-week, high-frequency treatment was implemented. Access the research details in eBioMedicine.

Register for Upcoming Webinars

• September 30, 11 a.m.–4 p.m. ET: Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component Data Users’ Workshop.
• AHRQ Safety Program for HAI Prevention: CAUTI Informational Webinar:
  • October 3, 11:30 a.m.–12 p.m. ET.
  • October 28, 3:30–4 p.m. ET.
• October 8, 2:30–4 p.m. ET: Prepping for the Future: Digital Solutions for Aging Populations.

AHRQ Stats: Combined Prevalence of Obesity or Chronic Conditions Among U.S. Adults

The percentage of adults diagnosed with obesity or at least one chronic condition was 77.2 percent in 2022. The percentage diagnosed increased by age, ranging from 52.2 percent of adults aged 18 to 22 to 99 percent of adults aged 80 and older. (Source: AHRQ Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Research Findings #52, Combined Prevalence of Chronic Conditions or Obesity for Adults in 2022.)

New Research and Evidence

• Systematic Review (draft open for comment through September 29): Dietary Total Fat Intake and Dietary Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Intake and Child Growth and Development Outcomes.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Pragmatic, multicentre, factorial, randomised controlled trial of sepsis electronic prompting for timely intervention and care (SEPTIC trial): a protocol. Ranard BL, Qian M, Cummings MJ, et al. BMJ Open 2025 Aug 11;15(8):e088792. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Using video ethnography and stimulated recall interviews to describe the diagnostic process in the emergency department. Manojlovich M, Cassady C, Parker SJ, et al. Acad Emerg Med 2025 Sep 3. [Epub ahead of print.] Access the abstract on PubMed®.

A call to action for penicillin allergy delabeling in patients with syphilis. Yan A, Koo G, Allocco C, et al. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol 2025 Aug 15. [Epub ahead of print.] Access the abstract on PubMed®.

User needs assessment of ASTHMAXcel Voice: a novel mobile health app for asthma management. Lee J, Chen Y, Zheng K, et al. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2025 Aug 7;329:401-5. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Clinical and system-level factors driving donor lung utilization decisions: a qualitative study. Koons B, Mendez JD, Anderson MR, et al. Ann Am Thorac Soc 2025 Aug;22(8):1155-64. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Clinical yield of acute inflammatory markers in the pediatric emergency department. Trandai B, Husainy D, Rivera-Sepulveda A. Clin Pediatr 2025 May;64(4):583-93. Epub 2024 Sep 24. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

The application of full-scale mock-up in simulation-based design evaluations of trauma rooms. Estejab H, Bayramzadeh S, Mirzajani H, et al. Int J Qual Health Care 2025 Jul 4;37(3). Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Building a time-series model to predict hospitalization risks in home health care: insights into development, accuracy, and fairness. Topaz M, Davoudi A, Evans L, et al. J Am Med Dir Assoc 2025 Feb;26(2):105417. Epub 2024 Dec 26. Access the abstract on PubMed®.