AHRQ releases guides to help providers design public reports about quality data/outcomes

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has published a series of three guides to teach best practices to those staff people at hospitals in charge of putting together reports for the public. The guides are meant to help users discover how to deliver clear information about hospital quality and performance to the public, which is often unfamiliar with healthcare terminology.

Specifically, the three reports are about the following:

• Report 1, titled,How To Effectively Present Health Care Performance Data To Consumers, focuses on the presentation of comparative healthcare performance data.
• Report 2, titled Maximizing Consumer Understanding of Public Comparative Quality Reports: Effective Use of Explanatory Information, focuses on the background information contained in public reports that frames the decision question, provides a context for using the information, and details the specifics of the data.
• Report 3, titled How To Maximize Public Awareness and Use of Comparative Quality Reports Through Effective Promotion and Dissemination Strategies, focuses on the promotion and dissemination of reports.

You can find access to these AHRQ reports by clicking here.

Do you think that this type of information is useful for you, or someone else at your facility? Is this information that whoever is in charge of putting these type of reports together at your hospital is already aware of? Usually the AHRQ releases these types of reports because there is a need for them in the field, so it’s likely that if your hospital has this down pat, you’re ahead of the curve.