AHRQ Names Winner of Social Determinants of Health Challenge Competition, Announces New Contest

AHRQ Stats: Patient Safety Culture in Nursing Homes

Nursing home staff completing AHRQ’s Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture in 2019 gave the highest positive response—85 percent—to “overall perceptions of nursing home resident safety” and staff “feedback and communication about incidents.” (Source: AHRQ, National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report Chartbook on Patient Safety, 2019.)

Today's Headlines:

• AHRQ Names Winner of Social Determinants of Health Challenge Competition, Announces New Contest.
• New Guide Helps Primary Care Practices Manage Long-Term Opioid Patients.
• New AHRQ Grantee Profile Highlights How Penny Hollander Feldman, Ph.D., Is Improving Quality and Outcomes in Home Healthcare.
• Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network.
• Among Heart Attack Patients, Questions About Post-Discharge Help Reduce Follow-Up Emergency Department Visits.
• Webcast on AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature.

AHRQ Names Winner of Social Determinants of Health Challenge Competition, Announces New Contest

AHRQ Director Gopal Khanna, M.B.A., today announced the winner of a Challenge grant. Mathematica, a research and policy organization based in Princeton, New Jersey, was named the grand-prize winner of the Visualization Resources of Community-Level Social Determinants of Health Challenge, which comes with a $50,000 award. Director Khanna made the announcement at AcademyHealth’s Health Datapalooza conference in Washington, D.C. He also announced a new Challenge focusing on digital solutions to support care transitions. That Challenge will offer a total of $175,000 for innovations that propose technological solutions that ease administrative and information management burdens and support patient activation and engagement, especially among Americans with low health literacy or limited English language proficiency. Access more information, including the list of the runners-up and finalists for the Social Determinants of Health Challenge, more information about the Digital Solutions to Support Care Transitions, a press release and an AHRQ Views blog post by Director Khanna. 

New Guide Helps Primary Care Practices Manage Long-Term Opioid Patients

AHRQ has released a new guide to help primary care practices manage patients taking opioids for chronic pain. The new Self-Service How-To Guide helps practices implement the AHRQ-funded Six Building Blocks, a structured, systems-based approach to treating patients who use long-term opioid therapy. Clinicians and staff, quality improvement personnel, practice coaches and clinic administrators can use the new guide to implement the Six Building Blocks in a three-stage, 15-month timeline. Developing tools and resources to reduce opioid overdoses and the prevalence of opioid use disorder is a priority for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and AHRQ. For more information, access a press release and an AHRQ Views blog post by Director Gopal Khanna, M.B.A. To receive all blog posts, submit your email address and select “AHRQ Views Blog.”

New AHRQ Grantee Profile Highlights How Penny Hollander Feldman, Ph.D., Is Improving Quality and Outcomes in Home Healthcare

Our latest grantee profile examines how AHRQ-funded research by Penny Hollander Feldman, Ph.D., emerita director and senior research scientist at the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, has helped to improve the quality of care for home healthcare patients. She created a virtual learning model that allows home health agencies to access evidence-based methods and tools to reduce hospitalization rates among patients. Check out her profile and others that show how AHRQ grantees have made major advances in health services research. 

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:

• Does team reflexivity impact teamwork and communication in interprofessional hospital-based healthcare teams? A systematic review and narrative synthesis.
• Effectiveness of acute care remote triage systems: a systematic review.
• Patient safety in inpatient mental health settings: a systematic review.

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). 

Among Heart Attack Patients, Questions About Post-Discharge Help Reduce Follow-Up Emergency Department Visits

Older heart attack patients who were asked whether they had help at home before being discharged from the hospital were significantly less likely to make a subsequent emergency department (ED) visit, an AHRQ study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found. Transitions from hospital to home are high-risk events, especially for older patients. Researchers studied responses from more than 2,100 patients age 75 and older to questions from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. The survey, developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and AHRQ, is used in CMS’ value-based purchasing program. Patients who said they were asked whether they had sufficient help at home were significantly less likely to use the ED within 30 days of discharge. Access the abstract.

Webcast on AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture

The “Understanding SOPS Surveys: A Primer for New Users,” is an AHRQ webcast held on Feb. 19, 2020. AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture (SOPS) are designed to help healthcare organizations assess how staff members perceive the ability of various aspects of organizational culture to promote a safe patient environment. Webinar speakers described the SOPS program, surveys, databases and user resources and highlighted what is new in 2020. 

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Mental illness among youth with chronic physical conditions. Adams JS, Chien AT, Wisk LE. Pediatrics 2019 Jul;141(1). Epub 2019 Jun 14. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Targeted workup after initial febrile urinary tract infection: using a novel machine learning model to identify children most likely to benefit from voiding cystourethrogram. Advanced Analytics Group of Pediatric Urology and ORC Personalized Medicine Group. J Urol 2019 Jul;202(1):144-52. Epub 2019 Jun 7. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Impact of oncology drug shortages on chemotherapy treatment. Alpert A, Jacobson M. Clin Pharmacol Ther 2019 Aug;106(2):415-21. Epub 2019 Apr 8. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Nonpharmacological self-management of migraine across social locations: an equity-oriented, qualitative analysis. Befus DR, Hull S, Strand de Oliveira J, et al. Glob Adv Health Med 2019 Jun 13;8:2164956119858034. eCollection 2019. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Source of increased health care spending in the United States. Biener AI, Decker SL, Rohde F. JAMA 2019 Mar 26;321(12):1147. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Staphylococcus aureus antibiotic susceptibility patterns in pediatric atopic dermatitis. Briscoe CC, Reich P, Fritz S, et al. Pediatr Dermatol 2019 Jul;36(4):482-5. Epub 2019 May 24. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Caregivers' perceptions managing functional needs among older adults receiving post-acute home health care. Chase JD, Russell D, Rice M, et al. Res Gerontol Nurs 2019 Jul 1;12(4):174-83. Epub 2019 Mar 25. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Scalability of an IT intervention to prevent pressure ulcers in nursing homes. Davidson C, Loganathan S, Bishop L, et al. J Am Med Dir Assoc 2019 Jul;20(7):816-21.e2. Epub 2019 Apr 4. Access the abstract on PubMed®.