April 23, 2024, Issue #910

AHRQ Stats: Dental Treat-and-Release Emergency Department Visits During the COVID-19 Era

The number of treat-and release emergency department visits for dental conditions decreased 17.7 percent between 2019 and 2020. The largest decline was for nontraumatic dental conditions, which decreased 23.1 percent. (Source: AHRQ Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Statistical Brief #305, Treat-and-Release Emergency Department Utilization and Costs for Traumatic and Nontraumatic Dental Conditions, 2019 and 2020.)

Today's Headlines:

• Making Healthcare Safer IV Report Expanded With New Evidence Reviews
• Grantee Profile Highlights Work of Tina Hernandez-Boussard To Improve Healthcare Quality, Equity Through Data Analysis
• Upcoming AHRQ Webinars
• Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network
• Now Available: 2021 Data on Hospital Care
• New Research and Evidence From AHRQ

Making Healthcare Safer IV Report Expanded With New Evidence Reviews

As part of AHRQ’s ongoing efforts to advance patient safety, the agency has published four new evidence reviews to help healthcare leaders prioritize and implement safety strategies:

• Failure To Rescue—Rapid Response Systems
• Prevention in Adults of Transmission of Infection With Multidrug-Resistant Organisms
• Sepsis Prediction, Recognition, and Intervention
• Engaging Family Caregivers

The reviews are part of the agency’s Making Healthcare Safer IV report, a continuous updating of evidence on safety harms and practices. First published in 2001, Making Healthcare Safer reports have consolidated information sources for healthcare providers, health system administrators, researchers and government agencies. The reports align with the agency’s lead role in advancing safety, including establishment of the National Action Alliance for Patient and Workforce Safety, a growing public-private collaboration to improve safety across healthcare delivery setting.

Grantee Profile Highlights Work of Tina Hernandez-Boussard To Improve Healthcare Quality, Equity Through Data Analysis

Tina Hernandez-Boussard, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate dean of research at Stanford University School of Medicine, has dedicated her career to analyzing “clinical big data” to identify quality and safety issues that can result in adverse events. With funding from AHRQ, she has reviewed large datasets, such as ones with administrative claims data and electronic health records, to develop evidence-based standards, guidelines and decision-making tools for general healthcare practice, including surgical specialties and pain management. In conducting her research, Dr. Hernandez-Boussard, who is also a professor of medicine, biomedical data science and surgery at Stanford, is working to address and unravel bias in healthcare data. Check out Dr. Hernandez-Boussard’s profile and the profiles of other AHRQ grantees.

Upcoming AHRQ Webinars

• May 2, noon to 1:15 p.m. ET: Research Methods for Studying the Primary Care Workforce will feature three AHRQ grantees who developed methodologies to understand the optimal structure and composition of primary care teams and measure the impacts of adding nurse practitioners into primary care.
• May 8, 1 to 2 p.m. ET: Listening to the Voice of the Patient: Using Multiple Feedback Methods to Complement CAHPS Survey Data will highlight how patient experience professionals use multiple patient feedback methods to complement AHRQ’s Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) data.
• May 23, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. ET: Using AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture® Hospital Survey and Workplace Safety Item Set will highlight how the Indiana Hospital Association used AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture® (SOPS®) Hospital Survey and Workplace Safety Supplemental Item Set to assess patient safety culture and workplace safety.

Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network

AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network (PSNet) highlights journal articles, books and tools related to patient safety. Articles featured this week include:

• Impact of repeated reimbursement penalties on hospital total quality scores
• Unmasking bias in artificial intelligence: a systematic review of bias detection and mitigation strategies in electronic health record-based models
• "Black Women Should Not Die Giving Life": The lived experiences of Black women diagnosed with severe maternal morbidity in the United States

Review additional new publications in PSNet’s current issue or access recent cases and commentaries in AHRQ’s WebM&M (Morbidity and Mortality Rounds on the Web).

Now Available: 2021 Data on Hospital Care

AHRQ’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) has updated four databases to support researchers exploring issues related to hospital costs, utilization, access and quality. The 2021 HCUP Nationwide Databases are available for purchase through the HCUP Central Distributor Online Reporting System:

• 2021 Nationwide Ambulatory Surgery Sample (NASS)
• 2021 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS)
• 2021 Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD)
• 2021 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS)

Also available are HCUP Software Tools:

• Clinical Classifications Software for Services and Procedures, v2023.1
• Surgery Flags Software for Services and Procedures, v2023.1
• Procedure Classes Refined for ICD-10-PCS, v2024.1  

HCUP, a federal-state-industry partnership, provides the largest collection of longitudinal hospital care data in the United States.

New Research and Evidence From AHRQ

• Evidence Report (draft open for comment): Healthcare Delivery of Clinical Preventive Services for People with Disabilities

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

A multi-center validation of the electronic health record admission source and discharge location fields against the clinical notes for identifying inpatients with long-term care facility exposure. Goodman KE, Taneja M, Magder LS, et al. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2024 Apr 18. [Epub ahead of print.] Access the abstract on PubMed®.

The consequences of firm scope and scale on patient access to healthcare. Meille G, Koch T, Wendling B, et al. Health Serv Res. 2024 Apr;59(2):e14228. Epub 2023 Sep 26. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Delirium due to potentially avoidable hospitalizations among older adults. Whittington C, Skains RM, Zhang Y, et al. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2024 Mar;79(3). Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Identifying and classifying diagnostic errors in acute care across hospitals: early lessons from the Utility of Predictive Systems in Diagnostic Errors (UPSIDE) study. Dalal AK, Schnipper JL, Raffel K, et al. J Hosp Med. 2024 Feb;19(2):140-5. Epub 2023 May 21. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Care partner engagement in secure messaging between patients with diabetes and their clinicians: cohort study. Semere W, Karter AJ, Lyles CR, et al. JMIR Diabetes. 2024 Feb 9;9:e49491. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Treatments for ADHD in children and adolescents: a systematic review. Peterson BS, Trampush J, Maglione M, et al. Pediatrics. 2024 Apr;153(4):e2024065787. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Development of a comprehensive survey to assess key socioecological determinants of health. Smith B, Smith BP, Hollis RH, et al. Surgery. 2024 Apr;175(4):991-9. Epub 2023 Dec 28. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Evaluating an electronic consultation platform to support pediatric primary care providers in caring for transgender and nonbinary adolescents. Sequeira GM, Asante PG, Bocek K, et al. Telemed J E Health. 2024 Feb;30(2):595-600. Epub 2023 Aug 25. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Contact Information
For comments or questions about AHRQ News Now, contact Bruce Seeman, (301) 427-1998 or Bruce.Seeman@ahrq.hhs.gov.