The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is the leading healthcare research organization within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. AHRQ’s mission is to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of healthcare for all Americans. AHRQ supports a variety of health services research at leading U.S. universities and other institutions, focusing on improving quality and patient safety, enhancing the outcomes of care, and promoting evidence-based decision-making at all levels of the healthcare system. Through these efforts, AHRQ is making strides toward its goals of strengthening quality measurement and improvement, while increasing system access and enhancing value.

AHRQ plays an important role across many different areas of the healthcare arena. AHRQ produces objective information that people can use to choose health plans, doctors, or hospitals based on their performance. Additionally, findings from AHRQ’s research and products help practitioners diagnose and treat patients more effectively.

“The only way to achieve real change in our healthcare system is through clear goals and a roadmap of how to get there,” said Carolyn Clancy, AHRQ Director. “The National Priorities Partnership has laid out very clear priorities and actions, and is comprised of organizations that can truly effect system-wide change.”

AHRQ is continually working to advance quality measurement and improvement. For example, AHRQ has developed an array of healthcare decision-making and research tools that can be used by audiences such as program managers, purchasers, researchers, government agencies, and others to measure and improve quality. AHRQ’s Quality Indicators tool is widely used to highlight potential quality concerns, identify areas that need further study and investigation, and track changes over time. The tool is being used for national, state-level, and hospital-level public reporting and tracking, and currently more than 10 states report some or all of the indicators.

AHRQ’s Consumer Assessment of Health Care Providers and Systems (CAHPS) program has become the focal point of a national effort to measure, report on, and improve the quality of healthcare from the perspective of consumers and patients. CAHPS develops and supports the use of a comprehensive and evolving family of standardized surveys that ask consumers and patients to report on and evaluate their experiences with healthcare.  

AHRQ’s Hospital-CAHPS survey is the basis for the patients’ experience data available on the Hospital Compare website.   AHRQ manages and runs a learning network for 24 Chartered Value Exchanges (CVEs), local collaborations of healthcare providers, employers, insurers, and consumers working jointly to improve care and make quality and price information widely available. The CVEs were designated by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2008. The learning network provides peer-to-peer learning experiences and technical assistance on quality measurement and improvement.

For more information on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, please visit www.ahrq.gov.