“As we look toward the 20th anniversary of AHRQ on December 6, 2019, I want to share some thoughts about where the Agency has been and where we are headed.”
“I could talk about the 3,860 grants AHRQ has awarded, the 3,030 researchers we have supported, or the more than $3.1 billion in funding we have awarded over the past two decades. But to me, what’s more important are the changes we have made in the healthcare ecosystem over the past 20 years—and the innovations that we have planned for the next 20.”
“Let me take you back to 1999. As we were entering a new century, many were in denial about the U.S. healthcare system’s problems. There was little discussion of patient safety until the publication of To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System (PDF) in late 1999. Even then, most healthcare CEOs thought that any problems that existed were in other facilities, not theirs.”
“But AHRQ, explicitly established as the Nation’s patient safety agency, took a closer look at the safety and quality of the healthcare system…”
“… AHRQ was created 20 years ago to make healthcare safer and higher quality—for all Americans. Under the leadership of its initial director, the late Dr. John Eisenberg, AHRQ fostered a spirit of innovation—of trying new things, anticipating where the field was going next, and asking the hard questions.”
“In that spirit, I want to start the next 20 years by asking: how do we position health services research for the future?”
“As regular readers of this blog know, I’ve outlined my vision for the future. My three priorities align with Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar’s goal of strengthening the U.S. healthcare system and emphasize safety, quality, and value over volume. They include improving care for patients with multiple chronic conditions, leveraging data and analytics, and improving diagnostic safety…” Read the full article here.
Source: AHRQ at 20, AHRQ in 20: Looking Back to Look Ahead – By Gopal Khanna, November 20, 2019. AHRQ.
