AHRQ Issues Regulatory Update

Mar 25, 2025

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has issued its weekly regulatory update, which can be read below.

March 25, 2025, Issue #951

AHRQ Stats: MRSA Rates by Payer Type

The rate of MRSA diagnoses on admission among expected self-pay hospitalizations decreased from 130.1 per 10,000 stays in 2019 to 114.1 per 10,000 stays in 2021, and the rate among hospitalizations billed to Medicaid decreased from 114.3 per 10,000 stays to 107 per 10,000 stays. These rates were nearly double that of hospitalizations expected to be billed to private insurance, which was 55.8 MRSA diagnoses at admission per 10,000 stays in 2019 and 49.4 per 10,000 stays in 2021. (Source: AHRQ Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Statistical Brief #315, Overview of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)-Related Inpatient Stays, 2016-2021.)

Correction: Last week’s AHRQ News Now misidentified the funder of an AHRQ Evidence-based Practice Center Program systematic review, Behavioral Interventions for Migraine Prevention. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute funded the report.

Today's Headlines:

AHRQ Report Identifies Strategies To Reduce Emergency Department Boarding
Opportunity for Improved Patient Safety and Cost Savings in Children Prescribed Multiple Medications
Register for Upcoming AHRQ Webinars

AHRQ Report Identifies Strategies To Reduce Emergency Department Boarding

A new AHRQ report released today shows the causes of emergency department (ED) boarding originate at the hospital or health system level and require solutions beyond the walls of the ED. ED boarding occurs after the decision is made to admit a patient to the hospital but there is no inpatient bed available, so the patient ends up waiting in the emergency department for hours, days or even weeks. Boarding has serious impacts on patients, including excess in-hospital mortality, increased medical errors and costly delays in care delivery. It also negatively impacts hospital staff and public safety. The report presents solutions from this broad contextual view and notes opportunities for health systems, states and federal partners to lead efforts moving forward. The report highlights findings from the AHRQ Summit to Address Emergency Department Boarding held on Oct. 8, 2024, in response to a bipartisan letter from 44 members of Congress to HHS.

Opportunity for Improved Patient Safety and Cost Savings in Children Prescribed Multiple Medications

An AHRQ-supported study in JAMA Network Open identified opportunities for improved patient safety and cost savings if medication therapy management coverage is made available to pediatric patients. For adult beneficiaries who meet the pharmaceutical cost threshold, Medicare covers the cost of a comprehensive management program proven to reduce spending and medication-related problems. Researchers reviewed the records of 529,055 children prescribed one or more medications annually in the 2022 Colorado All Payers Claims Database and found that 50 percent of patients had no concurrent medications, 44 percent had two to four concurrent medications and 6 percent had five or more concurrent medications. Of the $1.1 billion spent on prescriptions, 47 percent was spent for patients taking five or more medications. According to the article, 5 percent of pediatric patients in Colorado met the 2022 medication cost threshold for adults enrolled in Medicare to receive medication therapy management. Access the article.

Register for Upcoming AHRQ Webinars

April 3, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET: Overview of Two Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) Components will provide information about the survey’s Insurance Component and Household Component. The webinar will cover background, sample, content and data collection for both components. Tool demonstrations and Q&A sessions will be included.
April 3, 2 to 3:15 p.m. ET: The Impact of Consolidation and Ownership on Primary Care will highlight research on how health system ownership of primary care practices impacts primary care and patient health, including for Medicare beneficiaries and medically complex patients. The event will be sponsored by AHRQ’s National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research
April 15, noon to 1 p.m. ET: Safety Culture in Healthcare: Measuring and Responding will feature experts who will discuss tools and techniques to evaluate the culture of a healthcare organization’s workforce and tailor approaches to optimize safety culture. The event will be sponsored by the AHRQ-led National Action Alliance for Patient and Workforce Safety.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Randomized controlled trial to evaluate a new tool to support patient decision-making on transplant centers. McKinney WT, Israni K, Schaffhausen CR, et al. Clin Transplant. 2024 Dec;38(12):e70043. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Workflow analysis of breast cancer treatment decision-making: challenges and opportunities for informatics to support patient-centered cancer care. Salwei ME, Reale C. JAMIA Open. 2024 Jul;7(2):ooae053. Epub 2024 Jun 24. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Birthing parent and companion verbal reactions following interactions with inpatient postpartum health care team members: an observational study using naturalistic filming. Mangas M, Saggi NS, Macias MP, et al. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2024 Dec 20;24(1):841. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Reducing stigma through conversations in primary care about unhealthy alcohol use. Bishop D, Parsons D, Villalobos G, et al. Ann Fam Med. 2025 Jan 27;23(1):83. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Hospital-level variation in cardiac rehabilitation metrics. Pollack LM, Chang A, Thompson MP, et al. Am Heart J. 2025 Apr;282:58-69. Epub 2024 Dec 13. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Changes in coverage stability and churning for private, individual insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Hill SC, Jacobs PD. Health Affairs Scholar. 2025 Jan;3(1):qxae169. Epub 2024 Dec 10. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

A systems engineering approach to alarm management on pediatric medical-surgical units. Ruppel H, Luo B, Rasooly IR, et al. J Hosp Med. 2025 Jan;20(1):98-103. Epub 2024 Oct 17. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Developing a clinical decision support framework for integrating predictive models into routine nursing practices in home health care for patients with heart failure. Chae S, Davoudi A, Song J, et al. J Nurs Scholarsh. 2025 Jan;57(1):165-77. Epub 2024 Nov 7. 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.

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