AHRQ Quality Indicators Suitable for Consumer Reporting

The following sets of AHRQ Quality Indicators have been found to be appropriate and useful for consumers:

• Inpatient QualityIndicators capture quality of care inside hospitals. They include inpatient mortality for certain procedures and medical conditions; utilization of procedures for which there are questions of overuse, underuse, and misuse; and volume of procedures for which there is some evidence that a higher volume of procedures is associated with lower mortality.
• Patient Safety Indicators identify adverse events occurring during hospitalization. They provide information on potential in-hospital complications and adverse events following surgeries, procedures, and childbirth.
• Pediatric Quality Indicators include measures of inpatient quality and patient safety specifically for the pediatric population.

Details about the measures in each area and information on how to collect data for the measurement set are available at http://www.qualityindicators.ahrq.gov.

Composite Measures: In 2006 and 2007, AHRQ supported the development of composite measures of inpatient quality, patient safety, and pediatric quality based on the individual indicator sets. Researchers relying on sophisticated statistical techniques as well as expert opinion have developed four composite measures so far. These measures combine scores for individual hospitals on selected QIs to generate a more “global” assessment of hospital performance.

Learn More: To learn more about the development of the AHRQ QI composite measures for inpatient quality, patient safety, and pediatric quality, go to:

• Inpatient Quality Indicators (IQI) Composite Measure Workgroup Final Report,
  March 2008: http://qualityindicators.ahrq.gov/Downloads/Modules/IQI/IQI_Composite_Development.pdf
• Patient Safety Indicators (PSI) Composite Measure Workgroup Final Report,
  March 2008: http://qualityindicators.ahrq.gov/Downloads/Modules/PSI/PSI_Composite_Development.pdf
• Prevention Quality Indicators (PQI) Composite Measure Workgroup Final Report, April 7, 2006: http://qualityindicators.ahrq.gov/Downloads/Modules/PQI/PQI_Composite_Development.pdf