AHRQ Views: Arm in Arm With AcademyHealth, AHRQ Is Poised To Build on Successes in Health Services Research

AHRQ Stats: Services Used by People With High Expenses

Among people in the top 5 percent of healthcare expenditure tier in 2021, ambulatory events were the most common type of service, accounting for 38.5 percent of services used. Dental and other medical expenses were the least common, accounting for 3.7 percent. (Source: AHRQ Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Statistical Brief #556, Concentration of Healthcare Expenditures and Selected Characteristics of Persons With High Expenses, United States Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population, 2018-2021.)

Today's Headlines:

• AHRQ Views: Arm in Arm With AcademyHealth, AHRQ Is Poised To Build on Successes in Health Services Research.
• Extending Medicaid Eligibility Reduced Number of Uninsured New Mothers.
• AHRQ Awards Additional Grants To Expand Access to Care for People With Long COVID.
• Register Now for AHRQ Webinars on Improving Primary Care, Advancing Patient and Workforce Safety.
• New Interactive Tool Allows Users To Explore Declines in Dental Visits During COVID-19.
• Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature.

AHRQ Views: Arm in Arm With AcademyHealth, AHRQ Is Poised To Build on Successes in Health Services Research

AHRQ Director Robert Otto Valdez, Ph.D., M.H.S.A., cites examples of how AHRQ’s ongoing work in data and analytics, health systems research and practice improvement continue to resonate with patients, health system leaders, clinicians, researchers, caregivers and others in the third and final installment in a series of blog posts commemorating AHRQ’s 35th anniversary. The blog post also highlights AHRQ’s participation in AcademyHealth’s recent Annual Research Meeting, and Dr. Valdez expresses his enthusiasm to work with new AcademyHealth president and CEO Aaron Carroll, M.D., M.S. Access the full blog post, along with previous anniversary blogs: AHRQ Commemorates 35 Years as an Independent Science Agency and Continuing a 35-Year History, AHRQ Pursues Vital Pathways to Improve Patient Care. To receive all blog posts, submit your email address.

Extending Medicaid Eligibility Reduced Number of Uninsured New Mothers

Extending Medicaid eligibility during the COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduced the number of uninsured new mothers, according to a new AHRQ-funded study has found. The policy, which allowed beneficiaries to keep Medicaid coverage beyond the usual 60 days after childbirth, led to a 40 percent reduction in uninsurance among new mothers, according to the study, which was published in JAMA Health Forum. Despite reducing uninsurance, the extended coverage did not change rates of postpartum doctor visits, contraceptive use, breastfeeding or depression at about four months after birth, researchers found. The authors said their results highlight the immediate benefits of extended Medicaid but suggested more research is needed to understand its long-term effects. Access the abstract.

AHRQ Awards Additional Grants To Expand Access to Care for People With Long COVID

New grant awards from AHRQ will fund three multidisciplinary Long COVID clinics to implement and evaluate models for delivering comprehensive, coordinated, person-centered care to people with Long COVID and support primary care clinicians in Long COVID management. The investments expand AHRQ’s Long COVID Care Network, established in September 2023, to expand access to care for people with Long COVID, particularly underserved, rural, vulnerable and minority populations that are disproportionately impacted by the condition. It is part of the Biden-Harris administration's whole-of-government effort to accelerate scientific progress and provide support and services to individuals with Long COVID. The new grantees are University of Southern California; University of California, San Francisco; and Johns Hopkins University. Access more information about the AHRQ Long COVID Care Network, sign up for email updates and learn about AHRQ’s overall efforts to address the condition.

Register Now for AHRQ Webinars on Improving Primary Care, Advancing Patient and Workforce Safety

• July 11, 4 to 5 p.m. ET: Highlighting and Promoting the Value of Practice-based Research Networks. Presenters from a variety of Practice-Based Research Networks (PBRNs) will share examples from their own experience on ways that PBRNs contribute to improving the delivery of primary care. This is the second webinar in the PBRN Learning Series, sponsored by AHRQ’s National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research, which highlights the work of a variety of PBRNs and includes information on managing and growing PBRNs, building new PBRNs, and demonstrating the value and impact of their work.
• July 16, noon to 1 p.m. ET: Making Healthcare Safer by Design: Redesigning for Safety, Efficiency and Burden Reduction. The National Action Alliance for Patient and Workforce Safety, established by AHRQ on behalf of HHS, will highlight strategies to reduce burden, enhance efficiency and improve safety using engineering and human-centered design principles. The National Action Alliance is a public-private collaboration that strives to improve safety across all healthcare settings. Experts at ECRI, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the American Medical Association will offer tools and strategies for making safety a cornerstone of process design. Learn more about previous and future webinars, access tools and resources for advancing patient and workforce safety and sign up for the National Action Alliance newsletter.

New Interactive Tool Allows Users To Explore Declines in Dental Visits During COVID-19

AHRQ's latest interactive data visualization allows users to explore how dental visits were substantially reduced early in the COVID-19 pandemic compared with prepandemic trends. The tool offers data insights on dental service utilization, expenditures and both office and emergency department dental visits. Data can be explored by age, year and other factors. The data visualization is based on two AHRQ statistical briefs from AHRQ’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project and Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Access the data visualization, Dental Visits and Costs During the Pandemic, and additional AHRQ data visualizations.

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:

• Listen to me, I really am sick! Patient and family narratives of clinical deterioration before and during rapid response system intervention.
• What is diagnostic safety? A review of safety science paradigms and rethinking paths to improving diagnosis.
• Quality improvement lessons learned from National Implementation of the "Patient Safety Events in Community Care: Reporting, Investigation, and Improvement Guidebook".

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

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Horizontal and vertical equity and public subsidies for private health insurance in the U.S. Jacobs PD, Hill SC. Soc Sci Med 2024 Jun;351:116994. Epub 2024 May 18. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Provider-to-provider telehealth for sepsis patients in a cohort of rural emergency departments. Mohr NM, Young T, Vakkalanka JP, et al. Acad Emerg Med 2024 Apr;31(4):326-38. Epub 2024 Jan 24. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Risk of bleeding with concomitant use of oral anticoagulants and aspirin: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Ghule P, Panic J, Malone DC. Am J Health Syst Pharm 2024 Jun 11;81(12):494-508. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Multidisciplinary proactive e-consults to improve guideline-directed medical therapies for patients with diabetes and chronic kidney disease: an implementation study. Rikin S, Bauman L, Arnaoudova I, et al. BMJ Open Diabetes Res Care 2024 May 6;12(3):004155. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Narrative comments about pediatric inpatient experiences yield substantial information beyond answers to closed-ended CAHPS survey questions. Quigley DD, Elliott MN, Slaughter ME, et al. J Pediatr Nurs 2024 May-Jun;76:e126-e31. Epub 2024 Mar 2. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Improving outcomes in emergency general surgery: construct of a collaborative quality initiative. Hemmila MR, Neiman PU, Hoppe BL, et al. J Trauma Acute Care Surg 2024 May;96(5):715-26. Epub 2024 Jan 8. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Kidney transplantation in patients with tuberous sclerosis complex. Goedken AM, Ismail WW, Barrett LDG, et al. Pediatr Transplant 2024 Jun;28(4):e14765. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Patterns of interactions among ICU interprofessional teams: a prospective patient-shift-level survey approach. Ratliff HC, Yakusheva O, Boltey EM, et al. PLoS One 2024 Apr16;19(4):e0298586. Access the abstract on PubMed®.