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´óÏóÊÓƵStats

Access more data on this topic in the associated , plus additional ´óÏóÊÓƵdata infographics.

Today's Headlines:

• ´óÏóÊÓƵViews: Vanquishing Healthcare Disparities by Advancing Healthcare Equity.
• Increases in Provider Concentration May Reduce Healthcare Access.
• Study Highlights Best Practices in Clinical Presentation of Patient-Generated Health Data.
• Research Funding Opportunities From AHRQ.
• Deadline Extended to December 6 for Entries to Challenge Competition on Clinical Decision Support.
• Explore Careers at AHRQ.
• ´óÏóÊÓƵin the Professional Literature.

´óÏóÊÓƵViews: Vanquishing Healthcare Disparities by Advancing Healthcare Equity

AHRQ’s commitment to advancing health equity is highlighted in a new ´óÏóÊÓƵViews blog post authored by agency leaders. President Biden has cited the enormous human toll of systemic racism and persistent inequities due to differences in social and economic conditions in the United States. Over the past two years, ´óÏóÊÓƵhas examined equity and its connections to agency activities in alignment with its mission to improve healthcare for all Americans. A new of Health Services Research sponsored by ´óÏóÊÓƵsummarizes the state of evidence and identifies opportunities to drive more equitable care. A commentary in the issue——highlights crosscutting themes that can inform AHRQ’s health services research agenda and, more broadly, provides areas of collective action for the field of health services research. Access the blog post. To receive all blog posts, .

Increases in Provider Concentration May Reduce Healthcare Access

Increases in the market concentration of primary care providers may reduce some types of access to healthcare, a new ´óÏóÊÓƵstudy has found. The study, published in the journal Health Services Research, used ´óÏóÊÓƵ data and found that the percentage of people living in ZIP codes with concentrated markets (as defined by the level of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index) increased from 37 percent in 2008 to 53 percent in 2019. In addition, the number of physicians affiliated with multispecialty groups grew substantially from 2008 to 2019, changing the market structure patients navigate for care. The authors found that the market share of multispecialty firms was associated with fewer checkups, especially among people with supplemental Medicare insurance. People in highly concentrated ZIP codes were nearly 6 percentage points less likely to report having access to immediate care than people in unconcentrated ZIP codes. The association was largest among Medicaid beneficiaries, with a 17 percentage-point reduction in access to immediate care. Access the .

Study Highlights Best Practices in Clinical Presentation of Patient-Generated Health Data

Patient-centered clinical decision support aims to assist with tailoring decisions to an individual patient's needs. In a recent ´óÏóÊÓƵstudy in Applied Clinical Informatics, clinicians prioritized longitudinal data displays, multiple metrics on one screen, actionable data and customizable visualizations in their feedback on the design or evaluation of how patient-generated health data metrics were displayed within dashboards to aid in their decision-making, according to the study. The review of 15 previously published articles also found that ensuring visualizations were fast and simple to understand and allowed data to be used for other purposes was key to clinical adoption, though more research into a wider range of metrics is still needed. Access the .

Research Funding Opportunities From AHRQ

Health services researchers committed to improving the quality, safety and equity of healthcare can explore a variety of ´óÏóÊÓƵfunding opportunities to support this work. Notice of Funding Opportunities include Research Grants (R series), Career Development Awards (K series) and Research Training and Fellowships (T & F series). Access more information on when to submit applications. Special Emphasis Notices inform the research community of AHRQ’s interest in receiving health services research grant applications in priority areas. Current opportunities include:

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Deadline Extended to December 6 for Entries to Challenge Competition on Clinical Decision Support

Entries are now due Dec. 6 for the challenge competition on advancing the functionality, value and accessibility of AHRQ’s CDS Connect platform. Four prizes of $25,000 each will be awarded to winning contestants.  is a freely available web-based resource that enables the clinical decision support (CDS) community to identify evidence-based care, translate and codify information into an interoperable health information technology standard, and promote a collaborative model of CDS development. The challenge aims to strengthen the ways in which industry, government and nonprofit entities can collaborate to share innovative CDS across health systems. Access more information about how to enter.

Explore Careers at AHRQ

Join the team that strives to improve healthcare for all Americans by investing in health systems research, creating strategies to support practice improvement and providing data and analytics to identify opportunities for improvement. Current vacancies include:

• , Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety/Division of Patient Safety Organizations. Application deadline: Dec. 8.
• , Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement, Division of Practice Improvement. Application deadline: Dec. 15.

´óÏóÊÓƵin the Professional Literature

Demands of surgical teams in robotic-assisted surgery: an assessment of intraoperative workload within different surgical specialties. Zamudio J, Woodward J, Kanji FF, et al. Am J Surg 2023 Sep;226(3):365-70. Epub 2023 Jun 10. Access the on PubMed®.

Generalizability and portability of natural language processing system to extract individual social risk factors. Magoc T, Allen KS, McDonnell C, et al. Int J Med Inform 2023 Sep;177:105115. Epub 2023 Jun 5. Access the on PubMed®.

Medication misuse and overuse in community-dwelling persons with dementia. Deardorff WJ, Jing B, Growdon ME, et al. J Am Geriatr Soc 2023 Oct;71(10):3086-98. Epub 2023 Jun 5. Access the on PubMed®.

Prevalence and characteristics of diagnostic error in pediatric critical care: a multicenter study. Cifra CL, Custer JW, Smith CM, et al. Crit Care Med 2023 Nov;51(11):1492-1501. Epub 2023 May 29. Access the on PubMed®.

Concordance between clinical outcomes in the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial and in the electronic health record. Chu CD, Lenoir KM, Rai NK, et al. Contemp Clin Trials 2023 May;128:107172. Epub 2023 Mar 31. Access the on PubMed®.

Long short-term memory model identifies ARDS and in-hospital mortality in both non-COVID-19 and COVID-19 cohort. Chen JT, Mehrizi R, Aasman B, et al. BMJ Health Care Inform 2023 Sep;30(1):e100782. Access the on PubMed®.

Clinical implications of removing race-corrected pulmonary function tests for African American patients requiring surgery for lung cancer. Bonner SN, Lagisetty K, Reddy RM, et al. JAMA Surg 2023 Oct;158(10):1061-8. Access the on PubMed®.

Long-term health-related quality of life and symptom severity following hysterectomy, myomectomy, or uterine artery embolization for the treatment of symptomatic uterine fibroids. Anchan RM, Spies JB, Zhang S, et al. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2023 Sep;229(3):275.e1-.e17. Epub 2023 May 26. Access the on PubMed®.