Summary
Since 2003, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has reported on healthcare quality and disparities. The National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report (NHQDR) presents trends for measures related to access to care, affordable care, care coordination, effective treatment, healthy living, patient safety, and person-centered care. The report presents the latest available findings on quality of and access to healthcare, as well as disparities related to race and ethnicity, income, and other social determinants of health. The report is based on more than 250 measures of quality and disparities covering a broad array of healthcare services and settings.
AHRQ would like to reflect more current research and concepts in the NHQDR framework and its prioritization criteria, and the Evidence-based Practice Center Program has undertaken two technical briefs and five topic briefs to inform this effort.
The objectives of this effort are to:
- Update the 2010 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine framework to better align with current focus areas (equity and social determinants of health) and incorporate current NHQDR priority areas (Affordable Care, Care Coordination, Effectiveness of Care, Healthy Living, Patient Safety, Person-Centered Care, and Access to Care)
- Update the criteria for selecting and prioritizing measures
- Expand the current data sources to include Federal, non-HHS, and non-Federal sources
- Update the criteria for assessing disparities/equity
- Update the criteria for evaluating benchmarking
- In each topic brief, pilot a sample of measures using the updated framework and prioritization criteria
The technical briefs and topic briefs will be listed below as they are available (research protocol and final report).
