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Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality (AHRQ)

(formerly AHCPR - Agency for Health Care Quality and Policy and Research)

AHRQ Evidence Report/Technology Assessment -
Number 9

Closing the Quality Gap: A Critical Analysis of Quality Improvement Strategies
Volume 6—Prevention of Healthcare-Associated Infections (2007)

Guides to Patient safety, Inpatient quality, Prevention quality and Pediatric quality indicators

The new AHRQ QIs are organized into three modules that are published as a series: Patient Safety Indicators, Inpatient Quality Indicators, and Prevention Quality Indicators. All three modules are available and can be downloaded from AHRQ’s Web site (link below). The QIs were developed as an accessible and low-cost screening tool to help organizations identify potential problems in quality of care and target promising areas for in-depth review.

Guide to Patient Safety Indicators. March, 2007
These indicators focus on preventable instances of harm to patients, such as surgical complications and other iatrogenic events. The Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) are measures that screen for adverse events that patients experience as a result of exposure to the health care system; these events are likely amenable to prevention by changes at the system or provider level. The PSIs include 20 hospital-level and six area level indicators.

Guide to Inpatient Quality Indicators. March, 2007
These indicators reflect quality of care inside hospitals and include inpatient mortality; utilization of procedures for which there are questions of overuse, underuse, or misuse; and volume of procedures for which there is evidence that a higher volume of procedures is associated with lower mortality.

Guide to Preventive Quality Indicators. March, 2007
These indicators consist of ambulatory care sensitive conditions, hospital admissions that evidence suggests could have been avoided through high-quality outpatient care or that reflect conditions that could be less severe, if treated early and appropriately.

The Pediatric Quality Indicators. Current as of March 2007
This report is Phase I of a two-phase process to develop the Pediatric Quality Indicators in response to a charge to develop indicators of children’s health care utilizing inpatient administrative data. These indicators examine both the quality of inpatient care, as well as the quality of outpatient care that can be inferred from inpatient data, such as potentially preventable hospitalizations.

Or go to: http://www.qualityindicators.ahrq.gov/

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AHRQ Report - Making health care safer

AHRQ released an Evidence Report/Technology Assessment Number 43, "Making Health Care Safer A Critical Analysis of Patient Safety Practices" in July 2001. A summary of the analysis of 79 practices may be reviewed in the Summary report appended here, as well as the Appendix listing all 79 practices tabulated with ratings; the full report is 2M.

National Guideline Clearinghouse™ - AHRQ

The National Guideline Clearinghouse™ (NGC) is a public resource for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. NGC is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in partnership with the American Medical Association and the American Association of Health Plans. Viewers can subscribe to the NGC™ Weekly Update Service, which provides notification via e-mail when new features and guidelines become available.

AHRQ and HHS - online inventory of quality measures

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (USDHHS) recently made public an inventory of the measures that are currently being used by the divisions in HHS for quality measurement, improvement and reporting. The department's goal is to advance the effective use and harmonization of quality of care measures. This is the first time a comprehensive list of quality measures used by the department has been posted in a single location. The department's transparency about the quality measures being used lays the foundation for the measurement enterprise and local users to build and improve upon.

The HHS measure inventory is accessible through the National Quality Measures Clearinghouse™ (NQMC) Web site. Use the link and the drop-down box at the site to identify measures by HHS Division. You can view specified measure attributes by clicking the "More" link next to the measure title. For further analysis, the entire inventory of HHS Measures is available for download in Excel. This file will soon be enhanced with additional functionality such as sorting by condition, setting, or measure domain. Download: or go to:
http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov/hhs/hhs.browse.aspx?filter=333&browse=1#bookmark

AHRQ Patient Safety Network

A continuously updated, annotated, and carefully selected collection of patient safety news, literature, tools, and resources.

AHRQ-DOD compendium - Four-volume set of patient safety research studies

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Department of Defense (DOD) have jointly released a compendium of 140 peer-reviewed articles on patient safety studies by government-sponsored researchers. These studies include findings on medication safety, technology, and investigative approaches to better treatment, process analyses, human factors and practical tools for preventing medical errors. The 140 articles in the four-volume set cover a wide range of research paradigms, clinical settings, and patient populations. Where the research is complete, the findings are presented; where the research is still in process, the articles report on its progress. In addition to articles with a research and methodological focus, the compendium includes articles that address implementation issues or present useful tools and products that can be used to improve patient safety.

AHRQ WebM&M site

The Agency for Health Care Research & Quality has developed a resource for case studies and forum on patient safety and health care quality. This site features case studies, interactive learning modules and online discussion forums.

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