Congress has mandated that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) report annually to the Nation about health care disparities. An interagency workgroup developed a preliminary measure set for the National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR). Select for Background on the NHDR preliminary measures, including how to comment on them.
The NHDR and the National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) have been designed and planned as companion reports. To ensure uniformity, these two reports will use identical measures of quality of health care to the extent possible with available data. The NHQR preliminary measure set is reproduced in its entirety in the NHDR's preliminary quality measures. Because of data unavailability, examining disparities in some of these quality measures will not be possible in the first NHDR.
In addition, some measures in the NHQR preliminary measure set, particularly those related to Timeliness and Patient-Centeredness, are sometimes conceptualized as Access to Care measures. To facilitate the review of the NHDR preliminary measure set, these measures are listed twice—in both the Access to Care section and the Quality section.
Access to the Health Care System
Health Insurance Coverage / Usual Source of Care / Unmet Need / Mental Health & Substance Abuse
Structural Barriers Within the System
Transportation / Getting Care / Waiting Times
Ability of Provider to Address Patient Needs
Patient-Physician Communication / Patient-Physician Relationship / Cultural Competency / Health
Information
Utilization of Services Measures
Doctors' Offices & Hospital Outpatient Departments / Specialty Care / Mental Health & Substance Abuse / HIV Care /
Hospital Emergency Departments / Hospitalizations / Dental Services / Home Health Services / Hospice Services /
Nursing Home Services / Prescription Medications
Cost of Services
Total Expenditures / Ambulatory Expenditures / Ambulatory Mental Health Expenditures / Hospital Inpatient Expenditures /
Dental Services / Home Health Services / Prescription Medications / Durable Medical Equipment / End-of-Life Expenditures
Effectiveness of Care
Cancer / Chronic Kidney Disease / Diabetes / Heart Disease / HIV/AIDS / Maternal and Child Health /
Mental Health / Respiratory Diseases / Long-Term Care
Safety
Timeliness
Patient Centeredness of Care
Resource Consumption
Overall Measures