Good News on Two Policy Issues
Saving AHRQ
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is the lead federal agency for research on patient safety and best practices for improving patient care. As Leah Binder's Forbes blog described, there was a serious threat from Congress to eliminate this agency altogether or severely reduce its funding. But thanks to leadership of a coalition called Friends of AHRQ, of which Leapfrog is a part, funding was restored in the budget deal just approved by Congress. This is critical to our progress in patient safety, so thanks to all of you who helped with this effort.
Saving PSI 90
The Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the National Quality Forum voted to ratify PSI-90, a somewhat amended but still powerful composite safety measure that all of us worked together to support. It was very important to achieve endorsement because CMS reports this measure and uses it for value-based purchasing, and Leapfrog uses the measures in our Hospital Safety Score. Without PSI-90, we would have had a very significant setback in public transparency of patient safety data. Thanks to all of you for fighting for this endorsement.
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