Frequently Asked Questions
About This Site
How to Use the Information
How to Use This Site
Technical Problems
About This Site
What is the purpose of this site?
The TalkingQuality Web site is designed to be a comprehensive guide
for organizations that are developing reports for consumers about health
care quality. Its goal is to serve as an educational resource for those
relatively new to this task, as well as a reference for anyone looking
for information on specific topics related to quality reports or
examples of different approaches to reporting data. The site also offers
a planning tool to help report designers work through all of the steps
involved in generating an effective report.
Specifically, the TalkingQuality Web site focuses on the work involved
in developing relevant content (text and data), designing usable
documents, and distributing reports as effectively as possible. It was
not intended to help project sponsors select measures or collect data.
For more information about the latter, you can consult the Web site of
the Federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality,
which is also one of the sponsors of this site.
The TalkingQuality Web site was developed by the Work Group on
Consumer Health Information, with the support of the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The Work
Group was facilitated by the staff of Westat and the Quality Measurement
Advisory Service.
The Work Group on Consumer Health Information was an interdisciplinary
group of researchers, consumer advocates, purchasers, and government
officials. The group convened as part of an effort to follow-up on the
results of a 1998 National conference, "Making Quality Count:
Helping Consumers Make Better Choices." The goal of the Work Group
was to assist both private and public organizations in their efforts to
communicate information on health care quality to consumers.
If you would like to share part or all of your report on health care
quality to help your colleagues improve the state-of-the-art, please contact us via: http://info.ahrq.gov.
How to Use the Information
If you’re new to quality reporting, you probably want to get a
sense of how everything fits together before you dive into the details.
To get oriented, start with The Big Picture, which
quickly reviews the rationale for consumer reporting and walks you
through the major steps involved in putting together a report on quality
for consumers. This section also provides an overview of the various
activities that should occur in the planning stages for a project like
this.
If you already know something about quality reporting, there are
several ways in which you might want to use this site. First, you can
use it to learn more about various aspects of any project you might be
in the middle of planning or implementing. For example, if you’re in
the planning and budgeting stages, you may want to skim the material in
the section called Refining What You Do so that you can anticipate the
time and resources you’ll need to test your materials and distribution
strategy and evaluate the project at the end. If you’re working on the
text of your report, you may want to check out the advice in the section
called What to Say, which talks about what you need to explain to
consumers as well as other things they may want to hear. Or, if you’re
struggling to figure out how to present your data, you could consult the
material on presenting comparative results in the section called How to
Say It.
Second, you can use it to seek out information on specific topics.
The Search function in this site allows you to look up both words and
phrases. Another way to find information on specific topics is to skim
through the Site Map, which essentially outlines each section by listing
all the principal headings you’ll see. If you select a heading that
interests you, you can move directly to that section of the Web site.
Finally, you can use this site to get new ideas that you may want to
incorporate into your next report on quality. For instance, many
sponsors of consumer reports have not been able to focus yet on the need
to build awareness of their materials and to support consumers in using
them. The section called Into the Hands of Consumers suggests several
ways to approach the marketing of consumer information and reviews
different strategies for helping consumers use the information
effectively.
There are a few ways in which this site can help you develop a plan.
First, you can download a planning tool called the Workbook. The
Workbook presents you with a set of questions for you to answer,
recognizing that you may not be able to answer all of them at once. The
idea is to make you aware of the kind of information you’ll want to
have in order to design a successful report. Within the text, you will
see icons that indicate topics that correspond to questions in
the Workbook.
Under each question in the Workbook is a list of suggested tasks to help you
make assignments, keep track of what you know and have accomplished, and
focus on what still needs to be done. You can use this list to create a
planning document of your own.
The Big Picture section of this site is also intended to help you
plan your project. It reviews what you need to do when you start
planning a project of this kind and walks you through the principal
steps of a typical reporting project so that you can anticipate all the
issues that are likely to arise.
How to Use This Site
If you are a consumer, the information on this Web site was not
really designed for you, although you’re welcome to read it! To
learn more about health care quality, you may want to go directly to the
following Web sites:
Web Sites for Consumers
Consumer.gov:
http://www.consumer.gov/health.htm Consumer information from the Federal Government.
healthfinder®:
http://www.healthfinder.gov
Your free guide to reliable health information.
Healthchoices.org: http://www.healthchoices.org The National Committee for Quality Assurance's (NCQA) consumer-focused Web site.
There are several ways to move around in this Web site.
To get to one of the five main sections:
- Use the Home Page, where you will see a list of the main headings
with brief descriptions of their contents. You can move directly to
a section by selecting that heading.
- Use the list of headings that is almost always shown on the
left-hand side of your screen. (This list is not available when you
are looking at linked text or examples.) If you select one of them, you’ll go directly to the introduction to that section.
- Access the Site Map on the Home Page or at the top of your
screen, look around to see what’s in each section, then select a link for a
heading.
To get to a subsection within one of the main sections:
There are three ways to move around once you are in one of the main
sections:
- Select one of the headings on the
lower left-hand side of your screen. If you see a scroll bar, be
sure to scroll down to see all of your options.
- Select one of the headings shown on the first introductory
screen of each of the main sections. You can always return to this
introductory screen by selecting the main heading on the left-hand
side of your screen.
- Choose to move to the next subsection when you reach the end of
the subsection you’re currently reading. You can move to the next
section by selecting the "next page" icon.
Another option is to use the Site Map, which is available on the
Home Page or at the top of your screen (except for pages with linked
text or examples). Look around to find a topic that interests you,
select the heading, and move directly to that subsection.
The easiest way to find information on a specific topic is to use the
Search function, which is available on the Home Page or at the top of
your screen (except for pages with linked text or examples). When you
enter a word or phrase, this function will seek out any references to it
in the Web site and provide you with a list of promising options.
Another way is to use the Site Map, which is also available on the
Home Page or at the top of your screen. The Site Map can give you a
sense of all the topics covered in this Web site, so you may be able to
find something that discusses the issue you’re looking for even if the
terminology isn’t the same.
One key to keeping track of where you are in this Web site is to rely
on the headings on the left-hand side of your screen. As you move around
the text, those boxes will highlight the section and subsection you are
reading. For example, when you are in the What to Say section, this heading stands out from the others.
The color used to highlight this heading is the same color
in the box below that shows all the subheadings. As you move to
different subheadings, the lower box highlights the
one you’re reading.
Another way to navigate this Web site is use the "Back" button on your browser or the "Return" links at the bottom of documents
after you’re done with an example, reading more
detail on a specific topic, or getting a definition of an acronym or
unfamiliar term, to return to wherever you started.
Finally, you may want to refer to the Site Map, which can help you
keep track of what you’ve already read and show you what’s remaining
in each section.
Technical Problems
The Workbook is available to download in Microsoft® Word®, Adobe® Acrobat® PDF, plain text, and HTML formats. You can select the format that is most
compatible with your system. Links are also provided to sites that
provide free "plug-ins" that will allow you to read the
document. If you continue to have problems downloading the Workbook,
please contact us via: http://info.ahrq.gov and we will send you a hard copy.
TalkingQuality.gov was designed to be easy to use and
compatible with all major Web browsers; however, technical problems
may arise in some cases. Here
are a few tips for maximizing your use of the site:
- We recommend that your Web browser be at least
Netscape 4.0 or Internet Explorer 5.0.
- Set your screen resolution to 800x600. This will allow you to see
the entire width of the pages in the site without scrolling from
left to right.
- Set your browser to accept JavaScript. This will allow the navigation buttons to change color; if JavaScript is not enabled, however, the site will still function properly.
If you cannot access some examples, you probably do not have Adobe® Acrobat® installed on your computer. Adobe® Acrobat® is
free software that will allow you to access examples that are in a
format called PDF. Select for PDF Help. However, HTML versions of these examples are also provided.
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