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State Healthcare Quality Improvement Resources:
Tools You Can Use to Make a Difference

About the Tools

. State Snapshots Tool
The State Snapshots Tool displays health care quality performance across 129 measures of quality such as prenatal care, breast cancer deaths, etc. It allows you to determine your own State's quality performance, pinpoint priority areas for targeted improvement initiatives within your State, compare your standing with other States, and identify high performing States for learning exchange opportunities.

. HCUPnet
HCUPnet is an on-line query system that provides you instant access to the largest set of all-payer health care databases that are publicly available. Requesting data through this tool, users can identify, track, analyze, and compare statistics on hospital care in the U.S. The supporting databases also provide information on utilization, access, charges, quality, and outcomes of hospital care in your State.

. Diabetes Workbook
The Diabetes Care Quality Improvement Workbook and Resource Guide can be used to assess the current status of your State's diabetes care programs, create new diabetes quality improvement programs, and build upon existing programs.

. Asthma Workbook
The Asthma Care Quality Improvement Workbook and Resource Guide will help you assess the current structure and status of your State's asthma care programs, design new asthma quality improvement programs, and strengthen your existing programs.

. Asthma Return on Investment Calculator
The Asthma ROI Calculator will help states estimate the potential financial returns from their quality improvement and disease management programs.

. Preventable Hospitalization Costs: A County-Level Mapping Tool
The AHRQ Quality Indicators Mapping Tool can help you identify targets for future interventions, such as improving preventive and primary care services or patient safety, and tracking the impact of such interventions over time. The program also highlights where specific interventions can have the biggest impact for certain health plan enrollees or other target populations.

. Chronic Disease Cost Calculator
The Chronic Disease Cost Calculator - a CDC tool that uses AHRQ's Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data - generates state-specific estimates of prevalence and per capita cost for six chronic diseases in the Medicaid population: heart disease, congestive heart failure, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. The calculator will help states identify the cost burden of certain chronic diseases, and inform their decisions about investing in disease prevention and care management programs. This tool will be released in early fall, 2008.

"The beauty of the AHRQ [County-Level Mapping Tool] is that it reinforced what we were seeing in our internal reviews as areas to focus on. Working with a national resource with the credibility of AHRQ allows us to put this new, validated and adjusted data in front of our community healthcare stakeholders. Although we were considering phasing out some of our efforts, the data reinforced and highlighted for us that we in fact needed to stay the course."
Tom Smith, Regional Manager, Flint Michigan Community Health Care Initiatives, General Motors Corporation

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