In a world laden with acronyms, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, or AHRQ, packs its acronym with purpose. AHRQ is the leading federal agency devoted to enhancing the quality and safety of health care for all Americans. It does this through supporting health services research, or the study of how care is delivered to patients and the subsequent effects, as well as the development of tools and the dissemination of research, data and knowledge. As the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) considers reorganization, it is critical to understand the essential role AHRQ plays in safeguarding health care quality, efficiency, and safety in systems of care across the country. Here are five reasons why AHRQ is essential to high value, high quality health care and must be protected:
- AHRQ makes health care safer.
When patients enter a health care system, it is to be helped and not harmed. This simple fact is the origin of the Hippocratic Oath—do no harm—which simultaneously acknowledges the good intent to help patients with the reality that unintended harm from the care delivered is possible. AHRQ plays a vital role in enhancing patient safety across the nation, reducing serious safety events and preventing infections. It does so through research and implementation projects, education and training, as well as tools and resources. These activities keep patients safe. For example, AHRQ quality improvement strategies reduced serious safety events by 65 percent in a Maryland/D.C. health system.
- AHRQ ensures the best care possible.
In many ways, AHRQ plays a watchdog role, supporting data collection and reporting for hospital and health systems to monitor and improve their own quality. For example, the AHRQuality IndicatorsTM are measures of health care quality that health care decision makers, researchers, program managers, and others at the federal, state, and local levels can use to understand potential quality concerns, identify areas that need further study and investigation, and track changes over time. AHRQ provides these indicators along with free software that can be applied to any hospital inpatient or emergency department administrative data to identify and address quality of care events. AHRQ provides the resources and the tools for close quality and safety monitoring, an invaluable asset to all health systems committed to high-quality care.
AHRQ also helps ensure patients receive the best care possible by promoting the use of evidence in health care delivery. AHRQ’s Evidence-Based Practice Centers bring together medical researchers from a broad range of clinical health and scientific backgrounds to produce evidence reports on medications, devices, and other health care services with the goal of helping consumers, health care professionals, and policymakers make informed and evidence-based health care decisions.
- AHRQ helps lower health care costs without sacrificing quality.
While quality and safety are AHRQ’s north star, the agency is also attuned to efficiency. AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture collect necessary data on patient safety for hospitals, medical offices, nursing homes, community pharmacies, and ambulatory surgery centers. They also include Value and Efficiency items for hospitals to assess the extent to which their organizations place a priority on and adopt practices to promote efficiency, waste reduction, patient centeredness, and high-quality care at a reasonable cost.
- AHRQ prioritizes vulnerable populations.
A health care system that doesn’t work for everyone simply doesn’t work. AHRQ understands this and has, since 1999, placed particular emphasis on priority populations that may face systemic or other barriers to optimal health and access to care. These priority populations include inner cities or rural areas; low-income populations; racial/ethnic minorities; maternal health; women; children/adolescents; elderly; and individuals with special health care needs. This attention to populations that may need additional support to achieve their best health possible and access affordable, safe, and high-quality care helps to improve the health care system for everyone. When a barrier is eradicated for one population, it can be removed for all populations.
- AHRQ prepares our health care system for the future.
As we look to the health care of our future, advancing digital health care and keeping pace with technological advancements will be key. Over the past 20 years, AHRQ has made significant contributions to advancing technology integration in health care, promoting patient safety, and addressing gaps through its Digital Healthcare Research program. AHRQ played an instrumental role in building the foundation for telehealthcare through early investments in health information exchange, data sharing, and interoperability, which laid the groundwork for widespread adoption. AHRQ has also been a leader in the development of clinical decision support (CDS), which advanced the functionality of electronic health records. And AHRQ has been considering the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on health care delivery and safety since its early development and intends to support new research to determine whether and how certain breakthrough uses of AI systems can affect patient safety, and how AI systems can be safely implemented and used.
AHRQ says it all in its name—the leading agency committed to health care research and quality, and central to those aims, patient safety and efficiency. It has been steadfast in its support of investigations, tools, resources and training to understand what works in health care, for whom, at what cost, and under what circumstances. A sentinel for patient safety, a champion for evidence-based care, and a guardian of quality—AHRQ is essential to high value, high quality health care for all Americans.