USA. AHRQ Web-based resources

Citation

(2003), "USA. AHRQ Web-based resources", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 16 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2003.06216dab.011

USA. AHRQ Web-based resources

USA

AHRQ Web-based resources

Keywords: Quality, Medical errors, Safety indicators

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has launched two new Web-based resources. The Patient Safety Indicators at: www.qualityindicators.ahrq.gov are part of a major AHRQ program to improve the safety of patients in hospitals, outpatient care, and other medical settings. The program also includes research to develop ways to prevent medical errors and a Web-based medical journal that showcases patient safety lessons drawn from actual cases of medical errors.

The Patient Safety Indicators tool contains of a set of measures that use secondary diagnosis codes to detect 26 types of adverse events, such as complications of anesthesia, blood clots in the legs or lungs following surgery, fracture following surgery, and four types of birth-related injuries. Six of these indicators can be calculated as either a hospital-level or an area-level indicator. Area-level indicators use principal and secondary diagnosis codes to capture all cases of potentially preventable complications that occur within a specific geographic area and include foreign bodies left during a procedure, hospital-acquired pneumonia, infection from medical care, technical difficulty with a procedure, and reaction to blood transfusion. Evaluating these indicators by geographic region can help policymakers and providers identify differences in the occurrence of health-care complications by individual counties or Metropolitan Statistical Areas.

Although the indicators were developed primarily for hospitals to use in their quality improvement programs, other kinds of organizations will find the tool useful. For example, hospital associations can show member hospitals how they perform for each indicator when compared with their peer group, the state as a whole, or other comparable states.

The Patient Safety Indicators were developed and validated by the AHRQ-funded UCSF-Stanford Evidence-based Practice Center with the help of eight panels of clinicians nominated by 21 professional societies, including the American College of Physicians, American Society of Internal Medicine, American College of Surgeons, American College of Cardiology, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The tool can be downloaded free of charge from AHRQ's Web site, but it requires the use of SAS or SPSS software, which are commercially available statistical programs.

The Agency has also launched its Web-based National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) at: http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov. The NQMC will contain the most current evidence-based quality measures and measure sets available to evaluate and improve the quality of health care.

The site is designed to be a one-stop shop for physicians, hospitals, health plans, and others who may be interested in quality measures. Users can search the NQMC for measures that target a particular disease/condition, treatment/intervention, age range, gender, vulnerable population, setting of care, or contributing organization. Visitors also can compare attributes of two or more quality measures side by side to determine which measures best suit their needs. The site also provides material on how to select, use, apply, and interpret a measure.

HHS Secretary, Tommy G. Thompson, said: "This new clearinghouse is an important resource for anyone who wants to improve the quality of health care for patients. Ultimately, this interactive online resource will serve as the primary source for the most up-to-date, clinically proven quality measures."

The NQMC builds on AHRQ's previous initiatives in quality measurement and will be part of a larger Web site of quality, clinical information, and decision tool components that will include the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) at http://www.guideline.gov. The NQMC and NGC will be linked for those who wish to coordinate their search for both quality measures and guidelines.