Chartbook on Rural Health Care: Quality of Care Improved in Rural Areas

According to AHRQ’s new Chartbook on Rural Health Care, quality of care has improved for those living in rural areas. The chartbook is part of the 2016 AHRQ National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report, which tracks trends in effectiveness and timeliness of care, patient safety, patient-centeredness, disparities and efficiency of care. The chartbook shows that the quality of care for those living in rural areas improved for 53 percent of the measures studied. It also found that in 2014, the percentage of people who used a hospital, emergency room or clinic as a source of ongoing health care was higher for residents of rural areas compared with residents of large metropolitan areas. Between 1999 and 2015, suicide rates increased from 17 to 25 per 100,000 among whites living in rural areas and 21 to 34 per 100,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives living in rural areas.

Chartbook on Rural Health Care

National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report

This Rural Health Care chartbook is part of a family of documents and tools that support the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report (QDR). The QDR includes annual reports to Congress mandated in the Healthcare Research and Quality Act of 1999 (P.L. 106-129). This chartbook includes a summary of trends across measures of health care in rural areas from the QDR and figures illustrating select measures of health care in rural areas. A PowerPoint version is also available that users can download for presentations.

Download Information

Chartbook on Rural Health Care—Updated October 2017 [PDF, 2.5 MB]
Chartbook on Rural Health Care: Slide Presentation [PowerPoint, 2.56 MB]

Page last reviewed October 2017
Page originally created October 2017

Internet Citation: Chartbook on Rural Health Care. Content last reviewed October 2017. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/nhqrdr/chartbooks/ruralhealth/index.html