New AHRQ Studies Identify Ways Rural Communities Lack Healthcare Access

AHRQ Stats: Workforce Age and Employee Healthcare Contributions

Average employee contributions toward family healthcare coverage in 2018 were $5,905 per year in companies where workers age 50 or older made up less than a quarter of the workforce. By comparison, employee contributions were $5,255 where 50 to 74 percent of workers were over 50. (Source: AHRQ, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Statistical Brief #527: Premiums and Employee Contributions to Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance by Workforce Age and Firm Size, Private Industry, 2018.) 

Today's Headlines:

• New AHRQ Studies Identify Ways Rural Communities Lack Healthcare Access.
• AHRQ Grantee Profile: Michael Rinke, M.D., Ph.D., Working To Make Pediatric Care Safer.
• New Patient Safety Resource Outlines Evidence-Based Approach to Preventing Suicide.
• App Developed in AHRQ Competition Receives Award From American Medical Informatics Association.
• Featured Impact Case Study: AHRQ Tools Improve Care, Safety for St. Luke's University Health Network Obstetric Patients.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature. 

New AHRQ Studies Identify Ways Rural Communities Lack Healthcare Access

Two new AHRQ-funded studies pinpoint challenges that residents of the nation's rural areas face in getting access to mental health and hospital services. The research, published in the latest issue of the journal Health Affairs, looks at services provided in areas where about 60 million people, or one in five Americans, live. One of the studies found that rural residents with mental health needs received fewer mental health services than their urban counterparts from 2010 to 2015. The other found that rural residents often lose access to important clinical services (such as diagnostic imaging and primary care) following rural hospitals' affiliation with larger health systems. Access the AHRQ press release or the journal for more information.

AHRQ Grantee Profile: Michael Rinke, M.D., Ph.D., Working To Make Pediatric Care Safer

A new profile featuring AHRQ grantee Michael Rinke, M.D., Ph.D., medical director of pediatric quality at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore and associate professor of pediatrics and director of dissemination and implementation science at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, highlights his research on improving the quality of care delivered to children. Dr. Rinke has led research on how to reduce avoidable harms like central line-associated bloodstream infections and diagnostic errors in pediatric ambulatory settings. Learn more about his work and access the profiles of other AHRQ grantees.

New Patient Safety Resource Outlines Evidence-Based Approach to Preventing Suicide

A new “Web M&M—Cases & Commentaries” entry from AHRQ's Patient Safety Network illustrates the importance of evidence-based strategies to recognize and treat patients at risk of suicide when they are seen at hospitals and emergency departments. The resource features narratives that describe the cases of two patients whose acute medical conditions prevented comprehensive psychiatric evaluations even though both men had histories of excessive alcohol consumption and suicidal ideation. Both were found dead after being treated for their medical conditions and discharged. Continuing education credit is available for healthcare professionals who complete the case exercise, Missed Opportunities for Suicide Risk Assessment.

App Developed in AHRQ Competition Receives Award From American Medical Informatics Association

The PRISM™ app, which won AHRQ's Step Up App Challenge competition by creating a user-friendly app to collect and share patient-reported outcomes, has received a second-place award in the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) App Showcase sponsored by the American Medical Informatics Association. PRISM is an acronym for PROMIS Reporting Insight System from Minnesota. Participants in AHRQ's challenge competition were tasked to develop a Substitutable Medical Applications, Reusable Technologies (SMART®) on FHIR® app to collect standardized patient-reported outcome data. The PRISM app was designed to guide a patient through questions about their health status. Responses may be integrated with a patient's medical record so that a clinician can address the patient's needs and concerns during the clinical visit.  

Featured Impact Case Study: AHRQ Tools Improve Care, Safety for St. Luke's University Health Network Obstetric Patients

St. Luke's University Health Network—a nonprofit, integrated network providing services at nine hospitals and more than 300 sites in Pennsylvania and New Jersey—is improving the culture of safety in its obstetrics units by using a combination of AHRQ's Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ Hospital Survey and TeamSTEPPS. The network also used elements of AHRQ's Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) and Toolkit for Reducing Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infections (CLABSI) in developing a CLABSI checklist to improve care in the neonatal intensive care unit. Access the Impact Case Study.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Can advanced analytics fix modern medicine's problem of uncertainty, imprecision, and inaccuracy? Ahmad T, Freeman JV, Asselbergs FW. Eur J Heart Fail. 2019 Jan;21(1):86-9. Epub 2018 Dec 10. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Discharge heart rate after hospitalization for myocardial infarction and long-term mortality in 2 US registries. Alapati V, Tang F, Charlap E, et al. J Am Heart Assoc 2019 Feb 5;8(3):e010855. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Risk of mortality in individuals with hip fracture and traumatic brain injury. Albrecht JS, Al Kibria G, Gruber-Baldini A, et al. J Am Geriatr Soc 2019 Jan;67(1):124-7. Epub 2018 Nov 24. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Predicting diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias using administrative claims. Albrecht JS, Hanna M, Kim D, et al. J Manag Care Spec Pharm. 2018 Nov;24(11):1138-45. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Central nervous system medication burden and risk of recurrent serious falls and hip fractures in Veterans Affairs nursing home residents. Aspinall SL, Springer SP, Zhao X, et al. J Am Geriatr Soc 2019 Jan;67(1):74-80. Epub 2018 Oct 11. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Association between participants' characteristics, patient-reported outcomes, and clinical outcomes in youth with sickle cell disease. Badawy SM, Barrera L, Cai S, et al. Biomed Res Int 2018 Jul 18;2018:8296139. eCollection 2018. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Long-term outcomes from repeated smoking cessation assistance in routine primary care. Bailey SR, Stevens VJ, Fortmann SP, et al. Am J Health Promot 2018 Sep;32(7):1582-90. Epub 2018 Mar 13. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Treatment-free survival in patients with differentiated thyroid cancer. Banerjee M, Reyes-Gastelum D, Haymart MR. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2018 Jul 1;103(7):2720-7. Access the abstract on PubMed®.