AHRQ Views Blog: AHRQ’s Signature Data Resources Poised To Inform the Battle against COVID-19

AHRQ’s contributions to expanding the availability of data in the battle against COVID-19 are highlighted in a new blog post by AHRQ Director Gopal Khanna, M.B.A. AHRQ supports the emerging consensus that the nation requires a data infrastructure that delivers uniform, real-time information to address the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health and care delivery needs. Drawing on data from the agency’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), AHRQ has provided federal officials important information about hospital occupancy rates, the availability of intensive care unit beds and current ventilator capacity. Information from AHRQ’s Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) has similarly helped HHS leadership assess COVID-19 risks for various population subgroups. Looking ahead, AHRQ has begun to articulate a vision for a new AHRQ data resource—an “analytics and insights platform”—that will expand its data enterprise by providing valuable new information to researchers and policymakers at every level of government.