News and Notes

New interactive map spotlights AHRQ's impact
"AHRQ's Impact on Health Care" is a new interactive Web page (http://www.ahrq.gov/policymakers/case-studies/index.html) from AHRQ that highlights Impact Case Studies from each State and the District of Columbia on how AHRQ's research, products, and tools are being used and how they improve care. The new page features an interactive map that allows searching by State, as well as a full-text keyword search. Impact Case Studies are unique because they feature the "downstream" effects of AHRQ funding, highlighting real people who have successfully used the tools and resources to change practice, change policy, or improve patient outcomes. For more information, to provide a lead for a possible Impact Case Study, or to provide your own feedback about an AHRQ product, please contact ImpactCaseStudies@ahrq.hhs.gov.
AHRQ announces treatment options initiative to help patients
AHRQ's Effective Health Care Program announces new resources to help educate patients about the importance of exploring their treatment options, comparing the benefits and risks of each, and preparing to discuss these options with their health care providers. Three animated videos (http://www.youtube.com/user/AHRQeffectiveness)focus on newly diagnosed patients, considering treatment options, and caring for a loved one. Also available are two new Facebook pages—Treatment Options: Explore. Compare. Prepare. (www.facebook.com/yourtreatmentoptions/app_120636791438297) and Toma Las Riendas: Informate. Compara. Preparate. (https://www.facebook.com/AHRQehc.espanol), which encourage patients to obtain AHRQ's unbiased treatment information to become better informed before talking with their health care team about treatment options. Patients and caregivers also can get short health messages and tips directly via their mobile phones with AHRQ's new text messaging program. To sign up, text COMPARE to 22764 for messages in English or text MISALUD to 22764 for messages in Spanish. To access resources from the Treatment Options initiative visit www.ahrq.gov/patients-consumers/treatmentoptions/index.html.
AHRQ's "Questions Are the Answer" offers tools to promote patient involvement
"Questions Are the Answer," AHRQ's ongoing public education initiative on patient involvement, offers several consumer tools to improve communication between patients and clinicians to help make health care safer. AHRQ's Web site features these valuable tools at http://go.usa.gov/DXMG:

A 7-minute DVD of patients and clinicians discussing the importance of asking questions and sharing information, which is ideal for a lobby or waiting room area.
A brochure, titled "Be More Involved in Your Health Care: Tips for Patients," which offers helpful suggestions to follow before, during, and after a medical visit.
Notepads to help patients prioritize the top three questions they wish to ask during their medical appointment.

"Questions Are the Answer" is designed to promote safer care and better health outcomes. To request a free supply of these materials, email AHRQpubs@ahrq.hhs.gov or call 1-800-358-9295.
AHRQ announces health IT career development and dissertation research grants
AHRQ has published a Special Emphasis Notice (SEN) to support health information technology (IT) career development (K08) and research dissertation (R36) grants. This SEN is focused on five research areas that include health IT design, implementation, use, impacton outcomes, and measurement. These areas of interest are critical to supporting health care quality and are considered part of a continuous quality improvement process. You can access additional information on these grants at http://go.usa.gov/DXeC.
New journal supplement on comparative effectiveness and patient-centered outcomes research methods available
A new special supplement to the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology provides proceedings from the fourth AHRQ-sponsored symposium on research methods for comparative effectiveness and patient-centered outcomes research. The symposium, developed via AHRQ's Effective Health Care Program through the DEcIDE Network, examined the methodological work that serves to illuminate the mechanisms contributing to potential differences between research results from randomized clinical trials that measured treatment efficacy versus observational studies that measured effectiveness. Each of the 17 articles can be downloaded for free from the Effective Health Care Program Web site at http://go.usa.gov/DXed.

Current as of October 2013

Internet Citation: News and Notes. October 2013. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/news/newsletters/research-activities/13oct/1013RA24.html