Equity Is Essential to Health Care Quality Improvement: National Academy of Medicine Discussion Paper
Issue Number
781
September 21, 2021
AHRQ Stats: Most Common Operating Room Procedure for Children
Appendectomy was the most common operating room procedure among children in 2018, at a rate of 69.1 per 100,000 males and 48.1 per 100,000 females. (Source: AHRQ, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Statistical Brief #281: Overview of Operating Room Procedures During Inpatient Stays in U.S. Hospitals, 2018.)
Today's Headlines:
- Equity Is Essential to Health Care Quality Improvement: National Academy of Medicine Discussion Paper.
- AHRQ Grantee Profile Highlights Work of Jeffrey Gold, M.D.
- Environmental and Design Factors Impact Patient, Staff Outcomes.
- Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network.
- Featured Impact Case Study: AHRQ Quality Indicators Toolkit Strengthens Nursing Coursework at University of Phoenix.
- New Research and Evidence From AHRQ.
- AHRQ in the Professional Literature.
Equity Is Essential to Health Care Quality Improvement: National Academy of Medicine Discussion Paper
A new National Academy of Medicine Perspectives discussion paper, co-authored by AHRQ Acting Director David Meyers, M.D. and other healthcare quality leaders, outlines an agenda that puts equity at the center of discussions on healthcare quality improvement. The publication identifies equity, particularly racial equity, as the most urgent concern for the field and notes “change is needed everywhere—from the bedside, to the boardroom, to how payers pay for care.” The authors, which include both federal and private-sector leaders, describe longstanding barriers to advancing equity, including the impact of racism and discrimination, inadequate attention to social determinants of health and lack of data. They also outline strategies for enhancing equity, including strengthening patient and community engagement, increasing the trustworthiness of care delivery systems, incentivizing equity within organizations and improving data and measurement. The paper was commissioned on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the publication of To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century.
AHRQ Grantee Profile Highlights Work of Jeffrey Gold, M.D.
Check out AHRQ’s latest grantee profile featuring the work of Jeffrey Gold, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine and vice chair of quality and safety at Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine. Dr. Gold has focused on improving the effectiveness of the electronic health record (EHR) as a tool that providers can use to improve care. With AHRQ support, he has developed a simulation environment to evaluate how providers use the EHR as well as the effectiveness of provider training techniques and standards for reviewing patient data. Access more about Dr. Gold’s work as well as additional AHRQ profiles.
Environmental and Design Factors Impact Patient, Staff Outcomes
Noise, lighting and hazardous or poorly designed environmental layouts may negatively impact healthcare outcomes according to two AHRQ-funded literature reviews published in Intensive & Critical Care Nursing and American Journal of Medical Quality. One review of 30 published articles indicated that noisy environments and intense artificial lighting disturb patient and staff sleep and increase their blood pressure and stress levels. A second review of 20 additional articles associated design elements such as tripping hazards, inadequate space, equipment noise and inefficient layouts with distractions, poor visibility, complicated technology interfaces and lost time that could increase a risk of error, hinder provider performance and lead to patient safety risks.
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:
- Factors related to serious safety events in a children's hospital patient safety collaborative.
- Thematic analysis of nurses' experiences with The Joint Commission's medication management titration standards.
- Effect of a mobile app on prehospital medication errors during simulated pediatric resuscitation: a randomized clinical trial.
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).
Featured Impact Case Study: AHRQ Quality Indicators Toolkit Strengthens Nursing Coursework at University of Phoenix
AHRQ’s latest Impact Case Study describes how the University of Phoenix’s graduate nursing program uses AHRQ’s Quality Indicators (QI) Toolkit as a learning tool to help students better understand the quality improvement process and improve their projects to enhance patient care. Since introducing the AHRQ QI Toolkit as a curriculum resource in early 2019, professors report that student projects on topics such as falls prevention, cardiac care self-management and urinary infection reduction have greatly improved. Access the Impact Case Study.
New Research and Evidence From AHRQ
- Series Overview: AHRQ EPC Program Helps Health Systems Use Evidence.
- Technical Brief: Interventions To Decrease Hospital Length of Stay.
AHRQ in the Professional Literature
Personal and professional factors associated with work-life integration among US physicians. Tawfik DS, Shanafelt TD, Dyrbye LN, et al. JAMA Netw Open 2021 May 3;4(5):e2111575. Access the abstract on PubMed®.
Natural language processing for the surveillance of postoperative venous thromboembolism. Shi J, Hurdle JF, Johnson SA, et al. Surgery 2021 Jun 2. [Epub ahead of print.] Access the abstract on PubMed®.
Patient-defined outcome endpoints: a paradigm shift in evaluating atrial fibrillation ablation efficacy. Nair D, Michaud GF, Cavanaugh KL. Heart Lung Circ 2021 Aug;30(8):1103-6. Epub 2021 Jun 3. Access the abstract on PubMed®.
Advancing motivational interviewing training with artificial intelligence: ReadMI. Hershberger PJ, Pei Y, Bricker DA, et al. Adv Med Educ Pract 2021 Jun 4;12:613-8. Access the abstract on PubMed®.
The impact of an enhanced recovery program (ERP) on the costs of colorectal surgery. Khanijow AN, Wood LN, Xie R, et al. Am J Surg 2021 Jul;222(1):186-92. Epub 2020 Nov 19. Access the abstract on PubMed®.
Modeling patient-related workload in the emergency department using electronic health record data. Wang X, Blumenthal HJ, Hoffman D, et al. Int J Med Inform 2021 Jun;150:104451. Epub 2021 Apr 9. Access the abstract on PubMed®.
Getting to complete and accurate medication lists during the transition to home health care. Champion C, Sockolow PS, Bowles KH, et al. J Am Med Dir Assoc 2021 May;22(5):1003-8. Epub 2020 Jul 25. Access the abstract on PubMed®.
Evaluation of a clinical decision support strategy to increase seasonal influenza vaccination among hospitalized children before inpatient discharge. Orenstein EW, Elsayed-Ali O, Kandaswamy S, et al. JAMA Netw Open 2021 Jul;4(7):e2117809. Epub 2021 Jul 22. Access the abstract on PubMed®.