Care Delivery

Primary care is a core component of the U.S. health care system and the largest platform of formal health care in the United States. More people seek primary care services than any other type of health care service. A strong primary care foundation is necessary to improve the quality of care, improve the health of people and populations, and reduce the costs of health care. AHRQ supports improvements in care delivery through the development and dissemination of evidence-based tools and resources designed specifically to address challenges and opportunities in primary care settings.

Resources and tools in this section fall into six categories.

• Guidelines
• Practice Facilitation
• Health IT and Workflow
• Health Literacy
• Quality Improvement
• Patient Experience and Satisfaction
   

Guidelines

• Guidelines and Measures (GAM), was set up by AHRQ to provide users a place to find information about its legacy guidelines and measures clearinghouses, National Guideline Clearinghouse^TM (NGC) and National Quality Measures Clearinghouse^TM (NQMC). This information was previously available on guideline.gov and qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov, respectively.
• Prevention TaskForce. Prevention TaskForce is a free application that clinicians can use to search and browse U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations on the Web, on a PDA or on a mobile device. The app brings information on clinical preventive services—recommendations, clinical considerations, and selected practice tools—to the point of care.

Practice Facilitation

• Delivering Primary Care Practice Facilitation. Find practice facilitation training materials and other resources for practice facilitators and practice facilitation programs.
• Primary Care Practice Facilitation Curriculum. This curriculum is designed to assist in the training of new practice facilitators (also known as practice coaches, quality improvement coaches, or practice enhancement assistants) as they begin to develop the knowledge and skills needed to support meaningful improvement in primary care practices. Practice facilitation is an evidence-based approach to quality improvement in primary care practices.
• A How-To Guide on Developing and Running a Practice Facilitation Program (PDF, 3 MB). This guide is for organizations interested in starting a practice facilitation program designed to with primary care practices on quality improvement activities, with an emphasis on primary care redesign and transformation. It is intended for organizations or individuals who will develop, design, and administer such programs.

Health IT and Workflow

• Guide to Reducing Unintended Consequences of Electronic Health Records is an online resource designed to help organizations anticipate, avoid, and address problems that can occur when implementing and using an electronic health record. Our purpose in developing the Guide was to provide practical, troubleshooting knowledge and resources.
• Health IT-Enabled Care Coordination and Redesign in Tennessee (PDF, 2 MB) highlights opportunities to improve the impact of health IT on care coordination activities in primary care.
• Core Functionality in Pediatric Electronic Health Records examines features needed in pediatric electronic health record systems to ensure quality care for children.
• Examining the Relationship Between Health IT and Ambulatory Care Workflow Redesign (3.4MB) documents how workflow changed in six primary and specialty care medical offices after health IT systems were implemented.
• Patient-Reported Health IT and Workflow documents workflow impacts of applications that allow patients to share information with primary care providers electronically.

Health Literacy

• The AHRQ Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit – 3rd edition. This toolkit and companion implementation guide help adult and pediatric practices reduce the complexity of health care, increase patient understanding of health information, and enhance support for patients of all health literacy levels. Also available is a crosswalk showing how implementing health literacy tools can help meet standards for patient-centered medical home certification or recognition.
• Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) is a systematic method to evaluate and compare the understandability and actionability of print and audiovisual patient education materials.
• AHRQ’s Health Literacy Website. This website offers additional improvement tools, professional education and training resources, and publications.

Quality Improvement

• Finding Sustainable Funding for Primary Care Extension Programs—New! This resource shares information about potential opportunities for funding to provide guidance for existing programs that seek to become financially sustainable. It includes a variety of funding strategies and potential funding sources, as well as examples and tips for funding from health extension programs by several AHRQ grantees.
• Guidelines and Measures (GAM), was set up by AHRQ to provide users a place to find information about its legacy guidelines and measures clearinghouses, National Guideline Clearinghouse^TM (NGC) and National Quality Measures Clearinghouse^TM (NQMC). This information was previously available on guideline.gov and qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov, respectively.
• Confidential Physician Feedback Reports: Designing for Optimal Impact on Performance. This guide informs developers of feedback reports about evidence-based strategies to consider when developing or refining a feedback reporting system.
• Using Health Information Technology to Support Quality Improvement in Primary Care. This white paper describes factors that support the use of health information technology (IT) for quality improvement (QI) in primary care, for use by practice facilitators and other quality improvement “agents” to help them optimize practices’ health IT capabilities for QI purposes as well as for clinical care.
• Improving Your Office Testing Process: A Toolkit for Rapid-Cycle Patient Safety and Quality Improvement provides information and resources to help physicians' offices, clinics, and other ambulatory care facilities assess and improve the testing process in their offices.

Patient Experience and Satisfaction

• The Clinician & Group Survey of the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CG-CAHPS) assesses patients' experiences with health care providers and staff in doctors' offices. Survey results can be used to: improve care and equip consumers with information they can use to choose physicians and other health care providers.