Prevention and Chronic Care

Preventing disease and helping patients maximize health and function over the life span are two essential activities of a well-functioning health care system. AHRQ’s Prevention/Care Management Portfolio works to improve the delivery of primary care services in order to meet the needs of the American population for high quality, safe, effective, and efficient clinical prevention and chronic disease care.

Evidence-Based Decisionmaking

Evidence-based practice is the use of the best available evidence together with a clinician's expertise and a patient's values and preferences in making health care decisions. The Prevention and Chronic Care Program works to expand the available evidence base for evidence-based practice and to ensure clinicians have the tools to put this knowledge base into practice.

Healthier Pregnancy Provider Training

Improving Primary Care Practice

Primary care is the cornerstone of health care that is effective and efficient and meets the needs of patients, families, and communities. Our primary care system currently has significant—and perhaps unprecedented—opportunities to emphasize quality improvement (QI) and practice redesign in ways that could fundamentally improve health care in the United States. To ensure these efforts are successful, there is a need to build and sustain the ability of primary care practices to engage in QI activities in a continuous and effective way.

Resources

AHRQ works to improve the delivery of preventive care by developing tools, resources, and materials to support health care organizations and engage the entire health care delivery system.

Page last reviewed June 2018
Page originally created February 2013

Internet Citation: Prevention and Chronic Care. Content last reviewed June 2018. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/prevention-chronic-care/index.html