Documentation and Publications 

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) makes the AHRQ Quality Indicators (QIs) documents and software available without charge to hospitals and other users.  These include software documentation and guides that provide a synopsis of the evidence presented in the Refinement of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Quality Indicators Technical Review and the Patient Safety Indicators Technical Review. 

Modules

Documentation specific to each module can be found here.  Each page includes the User Guide that summarizes the evidence and usage of each indicator, a Technical Specifications document that gives the definition of each indicator including ICD-9-CM codes, Change Logs for the current revision and other documentation.  Also included are the technical review of the research that was used to create each module. 

• Prevention Quality Indicators Download
• Inpatient Quality Indicators Download
• Patient Safety Indicators Download
• Pediatric Quality Indicators Download

Software

The AHRQ QI Software is available for SAS® and Windows.  The four SAS modules may be downloaded from the following page.  The Windows software includes all modules in a single program.

• AHRQ QI Windows Application Download

Research and Presentations

• Presentations — published papers and material on the QIs
• Research — ongoing QI research

Composite Measures

This report summarizes the work of the PQI Composite Measure Workgroup, which was convened to assist AHRQ in developing a composite measure based on the Prevention Quality Indicators for use in the National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report.  The intended use of the PQI composite is to provide national estimates that can be tracked over time, and to provide state estimates than can be compared with the national estimate and to each other.

• Prevention Quality Indicators (PQI) Composite Measure Workgroup Final Report, April 2006
  • PDF format — 3.5 MB | (PDF help)
     

Public and Comparative Reporting

This document is written for current or potential users of the AHRQ QIs who may be considering applying the QIs for purposes other than national tracking or quality improvement. It is intended as a guide for individuals and organizations evaluating the QIs and administrative data for use in public reporting of hospital-specific quality or for payment (provider selection or pay-for-performance) programs.

• AHRQ Summary Statement on Comparative Hospital Public Reporting, December 2005
  • PDF format — 31 KB | (PDF help)
     
• Appendix A: Current Uses of AHRQ Quality Indicators and Considerations for Hospital-level Reporting
  • Word® format — 128 KB
  • PDF format — 273 KB | (PDF help)
     
• Comparison of Recommended Evaluation Criteria in Five Existing National Frameworks
  • Word® format — 55 KB
  • PDF format — 96 KB | (PDF help)

AHRQ Quality Indicators Draft Model Reports

These model reports are designed to report comparative information on hospital performance based on the AHRQ Quality Indicators. The documents below include a memorandum that describes the development of the model reports, and two model reporting templates (one based on health topics and one based on composite indicators).

• Memorandum: Guidance in Using the Hospital Quality Reports
  • Word format – 206 KB  
• Hospital Quality Report: Composites
  • Word format – 401 KB
• Hospital Quality Report: Health Topics
  • Word format – 726 KB

Archives

Previous versions of the QIs, software and documentation for the QIs that are no longer updated or supported but may still be useful for replication purposes, can be downloaded here.

• Prevention Quality Indicators Archive
• Inpatient Quality Indicators Archive
• Patient Safety Indicators Archive
• HCUP Quality Indicators Archive
• Documents Archive