Frequently Asked Questions

AHRQ's Health IT initiative funds projects that cover a wide range of issues, including the following:

• Examination of Health IT effectiveness in various types of information exchange, including medical referrals, transferring radiology and other test results, and information sharing among care teams.
• Impact of e-prescribing for different age groups and different medical conditions.
• Use of Health IT systems for patient safety improvement, providing for "blame-free" reporting of adverse events and close calls.
• Impact of Health IT on clinician workflow.
• Health IT applications for chronic diseases, especially diabetes and asthma.
• Demonstration of a patient-centered wellness application.
• Effectiveness of Health IT in the emergency setting.
• Health IT use in nursing homes, including the impact of clinical decision support.
• Effectiveness of various applications of telemedicine, including distance management of cancer and chronic conditions.
• Assessing incremental introduction of Health IT capabilities.
• Effectiveness of Health IT in monitoring the quality of care delivered in specific types of facilities.
• Health IT applications that provide clinical decision support.
• Impact of sharing access to electronic medical records with patients.
• Impact of Health IT on the continuum of care for patients as they are discharged from intensive care and when they return to the community.
• Use of Health IT systems in creating an evidence base for treatment of particular conditions.

More information on funded projects is available on the Health IT site.

Prevention TaskForce is a quick, hands-on tool designed to help primary care clinicians identify and offer the screening, counseling, and preventive medication services that are appropriate for their patients. The app is based on the current, evidence-based recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and can be searched by specific patient characteristics, such as age, sex, and selected behavioral risk factors. Available both as a Web-based selector and as a mobile application, Prevention TaskForce brings the prevention information clinicians need-recommendations, clinical considerations, and selected practice tools-to the point of care.

Go to Prevention TaskForce at: https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/apps/.

AHRQ Patient Safety Network (PSNet) offers weekly updates of patient safety literature, news, tools, and meetings, and a vast set of carefully annotated links to important research and information on patient safety. Perspectives on Safety, including podcasts, along with the WebM&M (Morbidity and Mortality Rounds on the Web) online journal, including Cases and Commentaries, are also available on PSNet.

PSNet is available at https://psnet.ahrq.gov.

WebM&M content is available at https://psnet.ahrq.gov/Webmm.

WebM&M offers continuing medical education (CME) credit for physicians and continuing education units (CEU) for nurses for completion of Spotlight modules.

For more information regarding CME, please go to: https://psnet.ahrq.gov/information/about-cme.

The annual release of the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report (QDR) facilitates monitoring and tracking of improvements in quality of the Nation's health care and progress against the three aims and six priorities of the National Quality Strategy. As the quality measurement effort continues, AHRQ will have more information about trends over time. We will be able to identify more clearly the areas in which we are improving and where the gaps and missed opportunities remain.

For a comparison of reports and other related resources, go to: https://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/nhqrdr/.

The National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports (QDRs) in collaboration with the National Quality Strategy, measure trends across the six National Quality Strategy priorities (patient safety; person- and family-centered care; effective communication and care coordination; prevention and treatment of leading causes of morbidity and mortality; health and well-being of communities; and affordable care). The reports present, in chart form, the latest available findings on quality of health and health care and access to health care.

The National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports (QDRs) and National Quality Strategy Update are integrated into a single document that describes the Nation's efforts to achieve better health and health care and reduce disparities. The Report tracks progress across the NQS priorities (patient safety; person- and family-centered care; effective communication and care coordination; prevention and treatment of leading causes of morbidity and mortality; health and well-being of communities; and affordable care), including quality measures, such as the percentage of heart attack patients who received recommended care when they reached the hospital or the percentage of children who received recommended vaccinations. The Report also summarizes health care quality and access among various racial, ethnic, and income groups and other priority populations, such as children and older adults.

To access the latest releases of these annual reports, go to https://nhqrnet.ahrq.gov/inhqrdr/reports/qdr.

Information from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) websites should be accessible via screen readers and other assistive technology tools with the exception of some archived materials or links to content resident on websites that are not Federal Government resources. These materials include special accessibility notices to this effect.

Please notify AHRQ of any accessibility problems so that we can remediate them and better serve you. Let us know the nature of your accessibility problem, the web address of the requested information, and your contact information.

Federal agencies are required, upon request, to provide information and data to individuals with disabilities through an alternative means of access that can be used by the individuals. If you need an alternative means of access to any information on AHRQ websites, please contact us through our public inquiries mailbox.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its websites provide practical health care information, research findings, and data to help consumers, health providers, health insurers, researchers, and policymakers make informed decisions about health care issues. AHRQ is committed to making the information and resources on the websites that it sponsors accessible to the widest possible audience, including people with disabilities.

Go to our Website Accessibility Notice.

People in the health care system are making important decisions about treatments and interventions every day, whether they have information or not. In order for these decisions to be the most informed possible, people making health care decisions should have access to the best available information—even if it is not definitive—when they need it and in a way they can understand. Our work also helps our Federal partners and policymakers make critical decisions by filling gaps in information on what works and what does not work in health care services, and by identifying important gaps for future research.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) makes some of its consumer and other products available in Spanish. These are posted on the AHRQ website.

AHRQ posts Spanish-language videos to one of its YouTube channels, AHRQ en español. The most watched playlists are Aprende a vivir (about diabetes treatment) and Opciones de tratamiento (treatment options). Go to: https://www.youtube.com/AHRQespanol/.