A Notice of Funding Opportunity from AHRQ seeks applicants to establish and support state-based Healthcare Extension Cooperatives to accelerate the dissemination and implementation of patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) evidence into healthcare delivery. AHRQ plans to award up to 15 grants for state-based Healthcare Extension Cooperatives for up to $25 million each over 5 years. The Healthcare Cooperatives will support states’ efforts to improve healthcare policy, align payment incentives, and advance clinical practice, and to reduce healthcare disparities, especially among people who receive Medicaid, are uninsured, or are medically underserved. The Healthcare Cooperatives will be part of AHRQ’s Healthcare Extension Service: State-based Solutions to Healthcare Improvement, which will also include a National Coordinating Center and a National Evaluation Center. Notices of Funding Opportunities for the two centers will be announced in early fall. Access more information about the Healthcare Extension Service, whose overall goal is to significantly reduce the time span between evidence generation and its use in healthcare delivery.

Only 6 percent of adults ages 35 and older received all of their recommended high-priority preventive services in 2018, according to the first national estimate of disparities in the receipt of person-centered preventive services. The analysis, based on data from about 15,000 respondents to AHRQ’s Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, found sizable disparities associated with all sociodemographic characteristics examined. For example, Black adults were 37 percent less likely than White adults to receive all 15 high-priority clinical preventive services. Those with a high school education or less were less than half as likely as college graduates to receive high-priority services. Adults with low incomes, those who spoke a language other than English, or those who were uninsured were all much less likely to receive all recommended high-priority services than their counterparts. Access the article in Discover Health Systems.

Person-centered data often are not easily shared from one health setting to another, in part because electronic health records (EHR) at different settings don’t “talk” to one another. To address this challenge, AHRQ and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases developed a Health Level 7 (HL7) implementation guide that provides data standards for the aggregation and sharing of data from different EHRs and settings to support person-centered care planning and care coordination for people at risk for or living with multiple chronic conditions. The HL7 Implementation Guide is part of the eCare Plan project, which aims to build SMART on FHIR electronic care plan applications that allow all members of the healthcare team—including people receiving care and their caregivers—to see and share critical health data.

A new AHRQ issue brief highlights the unique patient, clinician, and systemic-related factors that impact diagnostic errors in older adults, with the objective of identifying opportunities for diagnostic improvement. The number of older Americans is projected to nearly double by 2060, with those aged 85 and older—many of whom have multiple chronic conditions and complex health and social needs—expected to nearly quadruple between 2000-2040. The issue brief provides several recommendations for practice improvement, research, and policy to reduce older adults’ risk of diagnostic error. It also underscores the critical role of caregivers in the diagnostic process, recognizing the valuable insights they contribute. Access the issue brief, plus other AHRQ publications related to diagnostic safety.