2014 National Healthcare Quality & Disparities Report

We substantially reorganized the 2014 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report in response to feedback from readers to make it more usable while continuing to make available the data and analyses included in previous reports. We reviewed suggestions from AHRQ leadership, the Interagency Work Group, AHRQ’s National Advisory Council, NQS Implementation staff, and the Institute of Medicine related to focus, content, format, and dissemination.

The result of this input was a number of design principles that maximize value to potential users of this 2014 QDR.

• The report emphasizes analyses of change over time to assess performance and to distinguish areas that are improving from those that may benefit from additional attention. While many groups provide report cards on health and health care in the United States at a point in time, QDR data support trends across a broad array of quality measures for a wide variety of health care services and settings.
• Integration with the NQS is enhanced. The NQS identifies quality improvement priorities for the nation and reports on promising initiatives to make health care better. The 2014 QDR is reorganized around tracking progress for each of the six NQS priorities. It also tracks access to health care, which is not part of the NQS framework.
• The importance of simultaneously considering both performance and disparities is reinforced. Instead of two separate reports, the 2014 QDR provides a more complete and integrated assessment of access to and quality of health care. As specified in the Healthcare Research and Quality Act of 1999, it continues to focus on disparities related to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The new QDR also incorporates analyses of other priority populations, including women, children, older adults, people with disabilities and at the end of life, and residents of rural areas and inner cities.
• Electronic dissemination is expanded, recognizing that the vast majority of QDR users prefer the Web site to paper documents. This allows the paper document to be shortened and to focus on summarizing information for policymakers. Analyses of individual measures will be disseminated on the QDR Web site (http://nhqrnet.ahrq.gov). Additional information on each priority population will also be posted on the QDR Web site.

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