AHRQ Views Blog: AHRQ’s Commitment to Meeting Unmet Needs in the Healthcare System

AHRQ Stats: Employer Health Plan Enrollment

An estimated 10 percent of private-sector employees were enrolled in an employer-sponsored health plan having an annual premium of at least $24,000 for family coverage in 2016. (Source: AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Statistical Brief #519: Enrollment in High- Premium Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance by State: Private Industry, 2016.) 

Today's Headlines:

• AHRQ Views Blog: AHRQ’s Commitment to Meeting Unmet Needs in the Healthcare System.
• Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network.
• Sign Up Today for the AHRQ News You Need Most!
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature

AHRQ Views Blog: AHRQ’s Commitment to Meeting Unmet Needs in the Healthcare System

Agency Director Gopal Khanna, M.B.A., outlines AHRQ’s continued focus in 2019 on helping to address the unmet research needs in the healthcare service delivery system and ensure that the patient is at the center of those efforts. To that end, AHRQ is honing the agency’s core competencies in health systems research, practice improvement, and data and analytics to tackle pressing challenges in the healthcare ecosystem. These challenges include dramatic growth in the number of patients with multiple chronic conditions, and persistent threats to patient safety. Together, they create not only a potential perfect storm in the healthcare service delivery ecosystem, but potential opportunities for systemwide solutions. Access the blog post. To receive all blog posts, submit your email address and select “AHRQ Views Blog.”

Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network

AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network (PSNet) highlights journal articles, books and tools related to patient safety. Articles featured this week include:

• Association of adverse effects of medical treatment with mortality in the United States: a secondary analysis of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors study.
• Using a potentially aggressive/violent patient huddle to improve health care safety.
• Fatal flaws in clinical decision making.

Review additional new publications in PSNet’s current issue or access recent cases and commentaries in AHRQ’s WebM&M (Morbidity and Mortality Rounds on the Web).

Sign Up Today for the AHRQ News You Need Most!

Get the latest news and announcements from AHRQ by subscribing to agency listservs on topics ranging from patient safety to long-term care to health information technology. Email notifications to subscribers may include information about new research findings, funding opportunities, clinical tools and resources, blog posts, upcoming webinars and other agency activities. Additional topic areas include healthcare quality and disparities, prevention and evidence-based practice. Access the sign-up page to select desired topic areas.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Patient-physician communication on medication cost during glaucoma visits. Slota C, Davis SA, Blalock SJ, et al. Optom Vis Sci 2017 Dec;94(12):1095-101. Access the abstract on PubMed®.  

Spatial context and health inequity: reconfiguring race, place, and poverty. Tung EL, Cagney KA, Peek ME, et al. J Urban Health 2017 Dec;94(6):757-63. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Burden of skin pain in atopic dermatitis. Vakharia PP, Chopra R, Sacotte R, et al. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol 2017 Dec;119(6):548-52.e3. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Differences in Medicare expenditures between Appalachian and nationally representative cohorts of elderly women with breast cancer: an application of decomposition technique. Vyas A, Madhavan SS, Sambamoorthi U. J Natl Compr Canc Netw 2017 May;15(5):578-87. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Use of electronic healthcare records to identify complex patients with atrial fibrillation for targeted intervention. Wang SV, Rogers JR, Jin Y, et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2017 Mar 1;24(2):339-44. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Advancing perinatal patient safety through application of safety science principles using health IT. Webb J, Sorensen A, Sommerness S, et al. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak 2017 Dec 19;17(1):176. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Endovascular therapy in pediatric stroke: utilization, patient characteristics, and outcomes. Wilson JL, Eriksson CO, Williams CN. Pediatr Neurol 2017 Apr;69:87-92.e2. Epub 2017 Jan 25. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Update on the methods of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force: linking intermediate outcomes and health outcomes in prevention. Wolff TA, Krist AH, LeFevre M, et al. Am J Prev Med 2018 Jan;54(1S1):S4-S10. Access the abstract on PubMed®.