#SaveAHRQ Fiscal Year 2018 Advocacy Toolkit

This page contains resources designed for use by individuals and organizations who share our commitment to preserving the health services research housed at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and ensuring sufficient funding for it to achieve its mission and mandate. 

The toolkit, which includes the context for the fiscal year 2018 #SaveAHRQ campaign, can be accessed in full here. 

Below you will find an abbreviated version of the toolkit materials to promote #SaveAHRQ, including: 

• Key Messages and Sample Talking Points
• Overview of Key Congressional Players
• Sample Social Media Messages
• Sample Memes
• Resources and Case Studies of Impact

Key Messages and Sample Talking Points

• The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, or AHRQ, is the only federal agency with the sole purpose of producing evidence to make health care safer; of higher quality; and more accessible, equitable, and affordable; and to ensure that the evidence is understood and used.
• Health services research benefits us all. AHRQ's research, tools, and datasets are being used right now to help us understand and improve a complex and costly health system so that we can achieve better outcomes for more people at greater value. 
• Each federal agency was created to respond to specific gaps in science and answers different questions of the health care puzzle. AHRQ was created to address questions about the effectiveness of health care services, not their efficacy. In other words, "What interventions work in the real world of patients and communities, not in highly selected groups of patients from a clinical trial?"

Overview of Key Congressional Players

The Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee has jurisdiction over the budget for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the U.S. Department of Education. Its members are critically important as conversations surrounding funding levels for fiscal year 2018 unfold.

The following are members serving on the Labor-HHS Subcommittee. If you do not know who your member of Congress is, find out here by entering your zip code. 

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Sample Social Media Messages

*All Tweets should include the hashtags #SaveAHRQ and #SaveHSR

General Messages

• .@AHRQNews takes "what" and turns it into "how" by providing research-backed tools providers can use to improve care #SaveAHRQ #SaveHSR
• AHRQ is our bridge between research and practice. #SaveAHRQ #SaveHSR http://ow.ly/l05q30aOeA7
• From 2010-2015 >3M hospital-acquired conditions were prevented, saving ~125,000 lives and >$28B in health care costs #SaveAHRQ #SaveHSR
• Don’t let the politics of no destroy the science of why and how. #SaveAHRQ #SaveHSR

State-Specific Messages (Directed at Members of Congress)

• Oklahoma: [INSERT HANDLE] AHRQ's EvidenceNOW is improving heart health in primary care practices throughout our state http://ow.ly/woBs30dxWTc #SaveAHRQ #SaveHSR
• Michigan: [INSERT HANDLE] AHRQ-funded research saved 1,500 lives and $200M in 18 months in MI http://ow.ly/RlQCv #SaveAHRQ #SaveHSR
• Tennessee: [INSERT HANDLE] Vandy’s Dr. Penson used AHRQ funds to personalize prostate cancer treatment decisionmaking http://ow.ly/RlQCv #SaveAHRQ #SaveHSR

Sample Memes

Resources and Case Studies of Impact

General Resources

• AHRQ Impact Case Studies (can search by state, date, and topic, e.g., asthma, child health, dental health, hospital readmissions, etc.)
• "AHRQ: 15 Years of Transforming Care and Improving Health," a Friends of AHRQ report celebrating the 15th anniversary of the agency

Blog Posts and Op-Eds

• In the Name of Science...All Science
  April 21, 2017 | Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard
• Let's Not Fly Blind into the Next Health Reform: The Importance of AHRQ
  June 23, 2015 | Joseph Antos
• We'd Be In the Dark Without AHRQ
  October 15, 2015 | Alan Weil, Health Affairs
• JAMA Forum: The Agency Under Threat That We Need Now More than Ever
  September 30, 2015 | Gail Wilensky, Ph.D.
• The Little Federal Agency That Could
  December 16, 2015 | Leah Binder