AHRQ Views Blog Post: With TeamSTEPPS 3.0, AHRQ Refreshes a Landmark Patient Safety Training Curriculum

AHRQ Stats: Proportion of Adults Receiving Heart Disease Treatment

An estimated 8.1 percent of adults aged 18 years and older received heart disease treatment in 2020. That proportion was highest among those aged 65 and older at 23.9 percent, compared with 6.3 percent of adults aged 45 to 64 and 1.4 percent of those aged 18 to 44. (Source: AHRQ Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Statistical Brief #550, Healthcare Expenditures for Heart Disease among Adults Aged 18 and Older in the U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population, 2020.) 

Today's Headlines:

• AHRQ Views Blog Post: With TeamSTEPPS 3.0, AHRQ Refreshes a Landmark Patient Safety Training Curriculum.
• Trust Is Essential Element of Clinical Decision Support Implementation.
• AHRQ Resource Provides Access to Publications About Health System Performance.
• Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network.
• Register Now: Sept. 26 Webinar on Learning Health System’s Potential To Reduce Patient Harms.
• Explore Careers at AHRQ.
• New Research and Evidence From AHRQ.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature.

AHRQ Views Blog Post: With TeamSTEPPS 3.0, AHRQ Refreshes a Landmark Patient Safety Training Curriculum

TeamSTEPPS 3.0, an updated version of AHRQ’s signature patient safety training curriculum, is highlighted in a new blog post by Craig Umscheid, M.D., M.S., director of AHRQ’s Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (CQuIPS), and Monika Haugstetter, M.H.A., M.S.N., R.N., a CQuIPS health scientist administrator. Since TeamsSTEPPS was launched in 2006, hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals have completed training aimed at optimizing patient outcomes by improving communication and teamwork skills. TeamSTEPPS 3.0 includes revisions that address changes in healthcare delivery and learning methods while emphasizing patients’ active involvement in their care. The training program aligns with AHRQ’s ongoing patient safety efforts, including initiatives aimed at preventing diagnostic errors, healthcare-associated infections and surgical complications. Access the blog post. To receive all blog posts, submit your email address.

Trust Is Essential Element of Clinical Decision Support Implementation

An article authored by AHRQ researchers and collaborators highlights the role of trust in the development and implementation of standards-based clinical decision support through publicly available repositories such as AHRQ’s CDS Connect. The article in Applied Clinical Informatics concluded trust is a critical factor in uptake and can be bolstered through the sharing of transparent information on underlying evidence, collaboration with experts and feedback loops between users and developers to support continuous improvement. Researchers also concluded that lower-resourced health systems will need extra support to ensure successful implementation and use. Access the abstract.

AHRQ Resource Provides Access to Publications About Health System Performance

AHRQ’s Comparative Health System Performance (CHSP) Initiative, which aims to promote evidence-based practices in disseminating and using patient-centered outcomes research within health systems, now provides access to nearly 200 publications that explore topics including characterizing systems, improving internal processes of care, measuring system performance and ensuring health equity. Since 2015, the publications have been authored by more than 220 scholars associated with CHSP’s Centers of Excellence (COE): Dartmouth COE, the National Bureau of Economic Research COE and RAND COE, as well as CHSP’s coordinating center, Mathematica.

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:

• Development of a proactive process to harmonize policy, infusion pump library, and electronic health record entries for continuous infusions at an academic medical center.
• Vital signs: maternity care experiences — United States, April 2023.
• Weight estimation for drug dose calculations in the prehospital setting—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).

Register Now: Sept. 26 Webinar on Learning Health System’s Potential To Reduce Patient Harms

Registration is open for a webinar on Sept. 26 from 2 to 3 p.m. ET on the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) Journey to High Reliability: Advancing Toward Zero Harm and Becoming a Learning Health System. The webinar is part of a series sponsored by the AHRQ-led National Action Alliance to Advance Patient Safety, a public–private collaboration to support healthcare delivery systems’ move toward zero harm. Gerard R. Cox, M.D., M.H.A., the VHA’s Assistant Under Secretary for Health, Office of Quality and Patient Safety, and Edward E. Yackel, D.N.P., FNP-C, FAANP, the VHA’s Executive Director, National Center for Patient Safety, will highlight the VHA’s journey toward becoming a high-reliability organization with a focus on how to create a learning health system. Access more information about the Alliance and previous webinars.

Explore Careers at AHRQ

Join the team that strives to improve healthcare for all Americans by investing in health systems research, creating strategies to support practice improvement and providing data and analytics to identify opportunities for improvement. Current vacancies include:

• Director of Healthcare-Associated Infections Division, Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety. Application deadline: Oct. 3.
• Senior Staff Service Fellow, Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Application deadline: Sept. 14.

New Research and Evidence From AHRQ

• Comparative effectiveness review (draft open for comment): Behavioral Interventions for Migraine Prevention.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

A repeated cross-sectional study of nurses immediately before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: implications for action. Aiken LH, Sloane DM, McHugh MD, et al. Nurs Outlook 2023 Jan-Feb;71(1):101903. Epub 2022 Dec 8. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Variations in physician telemedicine provision. Apathy NC, Dixit RA, Boxley CL, et al. JAMA Netw Open 2023 Jul 3;6(7):e2321955. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Association of direct oral anticoagulation management strategies with clinical outcomes for adults with atrial fibrillation. Derington CG, Goodrich GK, Xu S, et al. JAMA Netw Open 2023 Jul 3;6(7):e2321971. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

A multi-language qualitative study of limited English proficiency patient experiences in the United States. Squires A, Gerchow L, Ma C, et al. PEC Innov 2023 Dec;2:100177. Epub 2023 Jun 10. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Implementation of cross-sector partnerships: a description of implementation factors related to addressing social determinants to reduce racial disparities in adverse birth outcomes. Blebu BE, Liu PY, Harrington M, et al. Front Public Health 2023 Jun 16;11:1106740. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

The association of dialysis facility payer mix with access to kidney transplantation. Cron DC, Tsai TC, Patzer RE, et al. JAMA Netw Open 2023 Jul;6(7):e2322803. Epub 2023 Jul 3. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Differences in use of clinical decision support tools and implementation of aspirin, blood pressure control, cholesterol management, and smoking cessation quality metrics in small practices by race and sex. Roberts MM, Marino M, Wells R, et al. JAMA Netw Open 2023 Aug;6(8):e2326905. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Sensitivity analysis using bias functions for studies extending inferences from a randomized trial to a target population. Dahabreh IJ, Robins JM, Haneuse SJA, et al. Stat Med 2023 Jun 15;42(13):2029-43. Epub 2023 Feb 27. Access the abstract on PubMed®.