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2005 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports

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In the Congressional reauthorization of the Agency on Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Congress directed the agency to produce an annual report on health care quality in the United States (Section 913(b)(2) of the Public Health Services Act as amended by Public Law 106-129). The first report was released in 2003 reflecting a comprehensive overview of the quality of health care in the United States. The second National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) report established a goal of tracking the Nation's quality improvement progress. The third adds data and measures to provide a more comprehensive analysis yet reaches to create a more user friendly tool. Most of the measures demonstrated improvement over 2004, however, the pace of improvement was felt to be modest at a mere 2.8 percent over the previous years data.

Of the four dimensions of health care quality, including effectiveness, patient safety, timeliness, and patient centeredness, measures for patient safety showed the greatest improvement. The diseases and populations which showed the most improvement were diabetes, heart disease, respiratory conditions, nursing home care and maternal and child health care, exhibiting and overall rate of change for these measures of 5.4 percent. The diseases and populations demonstrating the least improvement in quality measures were HIV and AIDS, cancer, end stage renal disease, mental health and substance abuse, and home health care. The overall rate of change for these measures was 0.3 percent.  

Medicare's Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) measures for the treatment of heart disease and pneumonia showed a much higher rate of improvement than non-QIO measures, heart disease and pneumonia both exhibiting an improvement of 9.2 percent alone.

2005 National Healthcare Quality Report

In a companion report, AHRQ has used the same measures to produce the 2005 National Healthcare Disparities Report, a third in the series. The report is an attempt to monitor the Nation's annual progress toward eliminating disparities in health care. In the 2005 NHDR, four key themes are highlighted for policymakers, clinicians, administrators, and community leaders who seek information to improve health care services for all Americans:

• Disparities still exist.
• Some disparities are diminishing.
• Opportunities for improvement remain.
• Information about disparities is improving.

The 2005 NHDR provides more information about disparities than previous reports. In part, this is attributable to improving data available for assessing disparities. Speaking before the Office of Minority National Leadership Summit January 9, 2006, Dr. Carolyn Clancy, AHRQ Director, commented, "Good data and good measurements are important because what you can't measure, you can't change." "It becomes clear that eliminating the disparities in health care is one of the most important things we can do as a nation to improve the overall quality of American health care," she said.    

Additional Quality Resources Provided By AHRQ

AHRQ Patient Safety Network (PSNet) -- A national web-based resource featuring the latest news and essential resources on patient safety. The site offers weekly updates of patient safety literature, news, tools, and meetings (“What’s New”), and a vast set of carefully annotated links to important research and other information on patient safety (“The Collection”). Supported by a robust patient safety taxonomy and web architecture, AHRQ PSNet provides powerful searching and browsing capability, as well as the ability for diverse users to customize the site around their interests (My PSNet). It also is tightly coupled with AHRQ WebM&M, the popular monthly journal that features user-submitted cases of medical errors, expert commentaries, and perspectives on patient safety.

National Quality Measures Clearing House  -- The National Quality Measures Clearinghouse™ (NQMC), sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is a database and Web site for information on specific evidence-based health care quality measures and measure sets. NQMC is sponsored by AHRQ to promote widespread access to quality measures by the health care community and other interested individuals.

Additional Resources On Minority and Health Disparities

Department of Health and Human Services, Office Of Minority Health -- The mission of the Office of Minority Health (OMH) is to improve and protect the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that will eliminate health disparities.

National Center on Minority Health and Disparities -- The mission of the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) is to promote minority health and to lead, coordinate, support, and assess the NIH effort to reduce and ultimately eliminate health disparities. In this effort NCMHD will conduct and support basic, clinical, social, and behavioral research, promote research infrastructure and training, foster emerging programs, disseminate information, and reach out to minority and other health disparity communities.

Americans' Views of Disparities in Health Care -- A poll conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and ICR/International Communications Research