National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Reports
AHRQ has long collaborated with the National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of Medicine) to develop comprehensive reports on topics that are critical to making the American health care system safer and higher quality. These reports represent the consensus recommendations from experts in the field regarding activities and future directions for health care quality and safety.
NAM reports sponsored by AHRQ:
Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, published in 2015, this report investigates diagnostic errors, something that most patients will experience at least once in their lifetime. This report is a continuation of the landmark Institute of Medicine reports To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System (2000) and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century (2001).
Future Directions for the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports A 2011 report that studied the best methods used in developing clinical practice guidelines and identified eight standards for developing rigorous, trustworthy clinical practice guidelines.
Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust When treating patients, doctors and other healthcare providers often are faced with difficult decisions and considerable uncertainty. They rely on the scientific literature, in addition to their knowledge, experience, and patient preferences, to inform their decisions. Clinical practice guidelines are statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care. They are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options.
Child and Adolescent Health and Health Care Quality: Measuring What Matters This 2011 report an assessment of both the state and the science of child and adolescent health and health care quality measurement, as well as the capacity of existing data systems to track and evaluate programs and services intended to serve the health care needs of these populations.
Health Care Comes Home: The Human Factors is a 2011 report that outlines the impact of technology, environment, policy and regulation, and human factors on the growing field of home health care. As a companion to the report, the National Academy of Sciences and AHRQ published a designer's guide to human factors for consumer health IT, Consumer Health Information Technology in the Home: A Guide for Human Factors Design Considerations. Read the Institute of Medicine Report and Designer's Guide on Bringing Human Factors into Home Health Care for more information.
Race, Ethnicity, and Language Data: Standardization for Health Care Quality Improvement is a 2009 report that recommends collection of more granular ethnicity and language need according to national standards in addition to OMB race and Hispanic ethnicity categories.
Resident Duty Hours: Enhancing Sleep, Supervision, and Safety, this December 2008 report looks at the impact of medical residents’ workloads and duty hours on patient safety and the learning environment for doctors in training.
Preventing Medication Errors: Quality Chasm Series Released: July 20, 2006
According to one estimate, in any given week four out of every five U.S. adults will use prescription medicines, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, or dietary supplements of some sort. Most of the time these medications are beneficial, but on occasion they do injure the person taking them. Sometimes the harm is caused by an error in prescribing or taking the medication, and these damages are not inevitable. Preventing Medication Errors puts forward a national agenda for reducing medication errors based on estimates of the incidence and cost of such errors and evidence on the efficacy of various prevention strategies.
Quality Through Collaboration: The Future of Rural Health is a 2004 report that examines the quality of health care in rural America and offers a strategy for future work.
Patient Safety: Achieving a New Standard for Care is a 2003 report that describes a detailed plan to facilitate the development of data standards applicable to the collection, coding, and classification of patient safety information.
Key Capabilities of an Electronic Health Record System this 2003 report sets out 8 core care delivery functions that electronic health records (EHR) systems should be capable of performing in order to promote greater safety, quality and efficiency in health care delivery.
Priority Areas for National Action: Transforming Health Care Quality, this 2003 report recommends a set of 20 priority areas that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and other groups in the public and private sectors should focus on to improve the quality of health care delivered to all Americans.
Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, a 2001 report, makes an urgent call for fundamental change to the American health care system and provides overarching principles for specific direction for policymakers, health care leaders, clinicians, regulators, purchasers, and others.
To Err is Human: Building A Safer Health System, this 1999/2000 report lays out a comprehensive strategy by which government, health care providers, industry, and consumers can reduce preventable medical errors.
