The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), is the leading federal agency for health services research and is tasked with safeguarding patients and health care delivery systems with the latest evidence-based strategies while promoting access to tools and resources to optimize the U.S. health care system. As HHS announces drastic changes, it is paramount to understand the key investment AHRQ proves to be. Here are four reasons why AHRQ is a smart, essential investment:
- AHRQ saves billions on health care costs by preventing medical errors.
No one practicing medicine or the health care system is infallible when it comes to making medical errors. Although they are generally preventable, medical errors cost approximately $17-$29 billion per year, making them the third leading cause of death in the US. Improving patient safety through system-wide, multifaceted prevention protocols proves to be a feasible option to prevent medical errors. For example, the 2014-2017 AHRQ’s Healthcare-Associated Infection (HAIs) research program, supported and sustained by National effort, reported an estimated 20,500 deaths prevented and $7.7 billion in cost savings. Additionally, AHRQ commissioned the Improving Patient Safety Systems for Limited English Proficient Patients: A Guide for Hospitals to mitigate communication failures across health care teams and with patients with limited English proficiency, utilizing medical interpreters, to prevent medical errors, reduce delays in medical procedures, and reduce costs in malpractice liability. One study reported the benefit of medical interpreter services saved a monthly $162,404 in hospital expenditures due to readmission aversions. Since its inception, AHRQ has conducted numerous patient safety studies to implement evidence-based strategies in hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities to prevent and minimize medical errors.
- AHRQ reduces unnecessary hospital readmissions.
Hospital readmission usually occurs when a patient is sent home with a new medication or a lifestyle change, their conditions worsen, or they develop new symptoms. With discharge program redesign, promotion of patient self-management, and improved care transition, hospital readmissions can be significantly reduced. AHRQ invests in targeted research to reduce hospital readmissions, including technological strategies, health care costs and utilization data collection, and causes of preventable readmissions. AHRQ’s Nationwide Readmission Database is part of a larger database to support analyses of national readmission rates, bridging gaps in health care data. From this data, AHRQ develops and disseminates toolkits to support and sustain the quality and safety of the hospital discharge process and care transitions, essential to reducing high, unnecessary hospital readmissions. The Re-Engineered Discharge (RED) Toolkit presents a set of activities and materials to improve the hospital discharge process for diverse populations, including justification and evidence of RED’s impact. After the implementation of RED, patients experienced a 30 percent decrease in hospital utilization within 30 days of discharge and cost an estimated $412 per patient episode less than patients who did not receive RED. AHRQ supports health system delivery models with evidence-based, best practices to significantly reduce hospital readmissions.
- AHRQ helps health care systems operate more efficiently.
AHRQ understands the value of investing in health care delivery system transformation, ensuring patients receive safe, high-quality, cutting-edge health care. One way AHRQ invests in health systems transformation is by creating and implementing training and programs to optimize health care system operations. Learning Health System Competencies (LHS), developed by AHRQ, are a series of training courses to guide and support scholars and individuals within health care systems to generate evidence, co-collaborate with stakeholders, and implement evidence-based, best strategies to improve health system performance. LHS competencies provide seamless knowledge sharing, reduce staff time searching for up-to-date evidence, and allow for rapid knowledge application to improve patient and system outcomes. Moreover, the AHRQ developed and managed Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) is a training resource created for clinicians by clinicians regarding safety culture and teamwork best practices. These investments, to name a few, are key instruments to optimizing health care system operations, ultimately, streamlining day-to-day tasks and ensuring better health outcomes.
- AHRQ enhances preventive services in primary care to save lives and money.
Primary care is a patient’s longest-standing relationship with the health care system, fortified through mutual trust and respect. It is through primary care that patients primarily receive preventive care such as screenings, counseling recommendations, and vaccinations, the key to saving lives and reducing health costs. AHRQ remains steadfast in identifying opportunities to emphasize quality improvement in primary care, especially in preventive services to promote better health outcomes. To improve primary care practices, AHRQ disseminates resources for capacity building, care coordination, and system redesign to sustain quality improvement in preventive services in primary care. For example, AHRQ promotes healthier outcomes through implementing primary care assistance such as the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, providing administrative, research, and technical support for day-to-day operations. Preventive services in primary care can lead to early detection and prevention of diseases, saving lives and reducing health care costs.
AHRQ’s cost-saving efforts speak for themselves, but nothing compares to how priceless saving lives means for patients and families. And this is precisely AHRQ’s mission, ensuring all Americans have equal access to high-quality, evidence-based care, in an efficient health care delivery system. AHRQ is the cornerstone of health services research, funding the next iteration of an improved health care system that meets patients where they are.
Read our previous blog on the five reasons why AHRQ is essential to high value, high quality health care and must be protected here. We’re also asking our members and community to take action in support of AHRQ. See our toolkit here which calls for transparency and stakeholder engagement involving any proposed reforms.