AHRQ - sporedata/researchdesigneR GitHub Wiki

General Description

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is the primary federal agency charged with improving the quality and safety of the American healthcare system. It aims to produce evidence to support policies to make healthcare better, more accessible, affordable, equitable, and safer by assessing the healthcare system's social determinants of health (SDOH).

The AHRQ develops the knowledge, tools, and data necessary to improve health system performance and aid patients, healthcare providers, and policymakers in making informed health choices. Its data and measures, research and tools, and training facilitate close collaboration with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies and other partners to ensure that produced evidence is understood and utilized to achieve the goals of better care, more efficient use of healthcare dollars and healthier people.

AHRQ data tools focus on four datasets:

Economic context (e.g., income, unemployment rate), education, healthcare context (e.g., health insurance), physical infrastructure (e.g., crime, housing, transportation), and social context (e.g., age, ethnicity, race, veteran status). The files can be linked to other data by geography (county and zip code).

• The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) - assists researchers and the general public in investigating access to care, health insurance coverage, healthcare utilization, expenditures, and quality of care. Two categories exist:
  • MEPS-HC - collects information on the health state of Americans, health insurance coverage, and the accessibility, utilization, and cost of health care to generate nationally representative estimates of medical problems, health status, usage of medical care services, charges and payments, access to care, care experience, health insurance coverage, income, and employment.
  • MEPS-IC - collects information on health insurance coverage offered by the business sector and State and local governments to its employees.
• The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) - the most comprehensive source of hospital data on emergency department visits by patients, hospital, encounter characteristics, and inpatient stays.
  • HCUP) Fast Stats - provides quick access to the most recent healthcare statistics based on the HCUP.
  • HCUPnet - identifies hospitals and persons subject to federal penalties.
• The National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report (NHQDR) - shows the progress and prospects for improving healthcare quality and reducing disparities. It assists in identifying areas where the United States' healthcare system has inefficiently and unevenly distributed services.
• The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) program - collects Surveys of Patient Experience.

Related publications / Literature

• AHRQ's Role in Improving Quality, Safety, and Health System Performance
• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
• Agency for healthcare research and quality
• Validity of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality clinical practice guidelines: how quickly do guidelines become outdated?
• Better information for better health care: the Evidence-based Practice Center program and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
• Evaluation of the Agency for healthcare research and quality pediatric quality indicators
• The Agency for healthcare research and quality multiple chronic conditions research network: overview of research contributions and future priorities
• Role of single group studies in Agency for healthcare research and quality comparative effectiveness reviews
• Three decades of research on computer applications in health care: medical informatics support at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
• Effectiveness of implementing the Agency for healthcare research and quality smoking cessation clinical practice guideline: a randomized, controlled trial

Data access

AHRQ data can be accessed at (https://www.ahrq.gov/data/index.html)