AHRQ releases annual quality and disparities reports

AHRQ releases annual quality and disparities reports

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released its 2006 "National Healthcare Quality Report" and "National Healthcare Disparities Report." Together, these annual reports follow developments in health care quality and admittance across numerous racial and ethnic minority groups and socioeconomic groups.

The quality report concludes that hospitals demonstrate the greatest recent quality improvements, particularly related to better treatment for heart attack and pneumonia patients. However, the report states that the pace of change among the 40 core quality measures identified by AHRQ is slow overall, and there is a high degree of variation among states.

According to the disparities report, blacks receive poorer care than whites for 73% of the core measures selected by AHRQ, while Hispanics received poorer care for 77%of the measures. Low-income patients received lower quality care than people of high income.

For more information please visit the following links http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhqr06/nhqr06.htm and
http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhdr06/nhdr06.htm.

Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality www.ahrq.gov/qual, e-mail announcement, January 30, 2007