Fact Sheet
This fact sheet describes some tools recently developed for hospitals and other providers from research of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
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Contents
Introduction
Examining Performance
Assessing Emergency Preparedness
Improving Organization
Enhancing Care
For More Information
Introduction
Translating research into practice that
enhances quality of care in the Nation's
hospitals continues to be a major effort
of AHRQ, the lead Federal
agency for research on health care
quality, costs, outcomes, and patient
safety.
AHRQ and its predecessor
agencies have maintained a
longstanding commitment to
developing tools to help hospitals
examine performance, enhance
treatment effectiveness, and improve
the health care system to help reduce
error and improve patient safety.
Briefly described here are some of the
tools recently developed for hospitals
and other provider organizations from
AHRQ research.
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Examining Performance
QualityTools Web site provides
practical, ready-to-use tools for
measuring and improving health care
quality.
This online clearinghouse
allows users to search for tools that
target a disease/condition, audience,
tool category, or vulnerable population.
The QualityTools providers' page
provides links to resources (including
Web sites, benchmarks, guidelines,
data, and measures) to help hospitals
and other provider organizations assess
and improve care delivery. Subscription
to a weekly "What's New" service is
available. QualityTools can be
accessed at:
http://www.qualitytools.ahrq.gov
AHRQ Quality Indicators (QIs) can
help hospitals assess their safety and
quality of care using routinely
collected administrative data.
Of
particular interest to hospital quality
assessment, AHRQ's Inpatient Quality
Indicators and Patient Safety Indicators
include measures of inpatient mortality,
utilization, and volume for selected
conditions and procedures as well as
hospital- and area-level indicators for
complications that may indicate inhospital
patient safety events. The QI software can be used to help hospitals
identify quality concerns or potential
problem areas that might need further
investigation. (A third QI module—the
Prevention Quality Indicators—can be
used with hospital administrative data
to identify levels of potentially
preventable admissions for a variety of
conditions in order to target
interventions at the State, community,
or even ZIP Code level.) More
information on the AHRQ QIs
(including downloading instructions) is
available at: http://www.qualityindicators.ahrq.gov.
Online query system allows hospitals
to compare their performance with
other States and the Nation.
Web-based
HCUPnet uses data from the
Healthcare Cost and Utilization
Project, a Federal-State-Industry
partnership between AHRQ and public
and private data organizations in over
35 participating States. An easy-to-use
online query system, its interactive
format gives hospitals access to national
and regional statistics on numbers of
procedures, diagnoses, length of stay,
costs, and charges. It also allows
hospitals to compare their performance
to national benchmarks using AHRQ's
Prevention QIs and Patient Safety
Indicators. HCUPnet is available at:
http://hcupnet.ahrq.gov/
New patient survey tool will enable
hospitals to uniformly measure and
publicly report patients' perspectives
on their care.
Jointly developed by
AHRQ and the Centers for Medicare
& Medicaid Services, the CAHPS®
Hospital Survey (HCAHPS®) will help
address the need for a national standard
for collecting information on patient
experience with hospital care and
making valid comparisons across all
hospitals. Hospitals will voluntarily
begin using HCAHPS® in 2005 under
the auspices of the Hospital Quality
Alliance; the first full national
implementation of HCAHPS® is
planned later in 2005. More
information on HCAHPS® is available
at: http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/cahps/hcahpfact.htm. Users may sign up for
the HCAHPS® LISTSERV® at: http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/cahps/hcahplist.htm
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Assessing Emergency Preparedness
Hospitals can use new bioterrorism
readiness questionnaire to assess their
preparedness for responding to a
bioterrorist attack.
Developed and
pilot tested in four hospitals under an
AHRQ contract, the Bioterrorism
Emergency Planning and Preparedness
Questionnaire for Healthcare Facilities
is designed to help hospitals assess the
capability of their personnel and
systems to respond to a bioterrorism
incident. The 42-question survey can
be downloaded from the AHRQ Web
site at: http://www.ahrq.gov/about/cpcr/bioterrtxt.htm
New computer staffing model can
help hospitals and health systems
plan antibiotic dispensing and
vaccination campaigns.
Developed
with AHRQ support, the Bioterrorism
and Epidemic Outbreak Response
Model is an interactive planning tool
designed to estimate the number of
staff needed to operate a mass
prophylaxis center given specific
population size, time frame, patient
flow, and staff limitations. This model
was provided to the American Hospital
Association (AHA) for distribution to
U.S. hospitals. The Microsoft® Excel
workbook may be accessed from the
AHA Disaster Readiness Web site at:
http://www.hospitalconnect.com/aha/key_issues/disaster_readiness/resources/vaccination.html
New AHRQ tool provides module-based
approach to evaluate hospital
disaster drills.
Separate modules
enable hospitals to assess the readiness
of their command, decontamination,
triage, and treatment zones. Among
the aspects addressed are time points,
zone descriptions and operations,
personnel, communications,
information flow, security, victim flow
and tracking, personal protective
equipment and safety, supplies, rotation
of staff, and zone disruption. Modules
for pre-drill assessment and debriefing
and detailed user instructions are
included. Evaluation of Hospital
Disaster Drills: A Module-Based
Approach is available at:
http://www.ahrq.gov/research/hospdrills/hospdrill.htm
Selection matrix tool can help
hospitals locate and rank alternate
sites in the event of a public health
emergency.
After a bioterrorist event or
other public health emergency,
hospitals may be overwhelmed by a
sudden influx of patients. The
Alternative Care Site Selection Matrix
Tool is designed to allow regional
planners to locate and rank potential
alternate sites—stadiums, schools,
recreation centers, motels, and other
venues—based on whether they have
adequate ventilation, plumbing, food
supply and kitchen facilities, and other
factors. The tool, developed under
AHRQ contract as part of the Rocky
Mountain Regional Care Model for
Bioterrorist Events, is available at:
http://www.ahrq.gov/research/altsites/alttool1.htm
For other bioterrorism planning and
response tools from AHRQ, go to:
http://www.ahrq.gov/prep/
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Improving Organization
New AHRQ tool helps hospitals and
health care systems assess and
improve an organization's culture of
patient safety.
This survey tool can be
used to assess the safety culture of a
hospital as a whole, or for specific units
within hospitals, as well as to track
changes in patient safety culture over
time and evaluate the impact of patient
safety interventions. The survey can be
customized to reflect the needs of
individual hospitals. The Hospital
Survey on Patient Safety Culture, which
includes the survey tool and a detailed
user's guide, can be found at:
http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/hospculture/
National Quality Measures
Clearinghouse™ (NQMC) assists
hospitals to select, use, and apply
clinically proven quality measures.
Designed as a one-stop, Web-based
shop for hospitals, health systems,
health plans, and others who may be
interested in quality measurement and
improvement, the NQMC has the
most current evidence-based quality
measures and measure sets available to
evaluate health care quality. Users can
search the NQMC for measures that
target a particular disease or condition,
treatment, age range, gender, vulnerable
population, setting of care, or
contributing organization. Visitors also
can compare attributes of two or more
quality measures side by side to
determine which measures best suit
their needs. The NQMC can be
accessed without charge at:
http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov
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Enhancing Care
Web-based clinical pharmacology
educational tool can help hospitals
prevent adverse events.
This online
educational module, Preventable
Adverse Drug Reactions: A Focus on
Drug Interactions, was developed by
investigators at one of AHRQ's Centers
for Education and Research on
Therapeutics in collaboration with the
Food and Drug Administration's Center
for Drug Evaluation and Research. The
module consists of a set of slides
illustrating a sample case, extensive
literature references, and self-assessment
questions. The module is free and
publicly available at:
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/drugReactions/default.htm
National Guideline Clearinghouse™ (NGC) lets hospital staff locate and
compare clinical recommendations
online.
The NGC is a Web-based
resource that contains guidelines
submitted by health care organizations,
associations, medical societies, and
Federal agencies. Updated weekly with
new content, the site provides an
accessible and comprehensive source of
clinical practice guidelines—in both
summary and full text (where available)
format—saving users hours of
researching to find similar information.
Free subscription to weekly "What's
New" electronic notices is available.
Originally developed by AHRQ in
partnership with the American Medical
Association and the American
Association of Health Plans, the NCG
can be accessed without charge at:
http://www.guideline.gov
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For More Information
More information on AHRQ and its
programs and projects may be found on
the AHRQ Web site at: http://www.ahrq.gov
Return to Contents
AHRQ Publication No. 05-P016
Current as of March 2005
Internet Citation:
Tools for Hospitals and Health Care Systems. Fact Sheet. AHRQ Publication No. 05-P016, March 2005. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/hosptools.htm
540 Gaither Road Rockville, MD 20850