Theodore Ganiats, MD

This is the tenth in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

An important part of self-management (last month’s article) is medication management, often augmented by the use of a portal and always cognizant of the importance of medication reconciliation and drug interactions. These latter issues can be addressed with health information technology (health IT), which will be discussed the next two columns. This month, we examine some of AHRQ’s other tools and resources to assist with medication management.

ahrq.gov/programs/index.html

Dr. Ganiats is director of the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ, Rockville, Md.

This is the tenth in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

An important part of self-management (last month’s article) is medication management, often augmented by the use of a portal and always cognizant of the importance of medication reconciliation and drug interactions. These latter issues can be addressed with health information technology (health IT), which will be discussed the next two columns. This month, we examine some of AHRQ’s other tools and resources to assist with medication management.

ahrq.gov/programs/index.html

Dr. Ganiats is director of the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ, Rockville, Md.

This is the tenth in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

An important part of self-management (last month’s article) is medication management, often augmented by the use of a portal and always cognizant of the importance of medication reconciliation and drug interactions. These latter issues can be addressed with health information technology (health IT), which will be discussed the next two columns. This month, we examine some of AHRQ’s other tools and resources to assist with medication management.

ahrq.gov/programs/index.html

Dr. Ganiats is director of the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ, Rockville, Md.

This is the sixth in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

Primary care practice is under increasing pressure to evolve. As highlighted in this series, topics such as shared decision making, team-based care, integration of behavioral health into primary care practice, and practice facilitation all offer the potential to enhance your primary care practice. On the other hand, quality of care must remain a top priority during this transformation. While much of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) work in quality of care focuses on the inpatient setting, AHRQ offers many tools and resources to evaluate quality of care and to implement quality improvement into your primary care practice.

• Confidential Physician Feedback Reports: Designing for Optimal Impact on Performance is a guide that informs developers of feedback reports about evidence-based strategies to consider when they develop or refine a feedback reporting system.
• Will It Work Here? A Decisionmaker’s Guide to Adopting Innovations can help you determine if an innovation would be a good fit – or an appropriate stretch – for your practice or health care organization by asking a series of questions. It links users to actionable Web-based tools and presents case studies that illustrate how other organizations have addressed these questions.
• 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.

These and other tools can be found at the AHRQ website.

Dr. Ganiats is the director for the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ.

This is the sixth in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

Primary care practice is under increasing pressure to evolve. As highlighted in this series, topics such as shared decision making, team-based care, integration of behavioral health into primary care practice, and practice facilitation all offer the potential to enhance your primary care practice. On the other hand, quality of care must remain a top priority during this transformation. While much of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) work in quality of care focuses on the inpatient setting, AHRQ offers many tools and resources to evaluate quality of care and to implement quality improvement into your primary care practice.

• Confidential Physician Feedback Reports: Designing for Optimal Impact on Performance is a guide that informs developers of feedback reports about evidence-based strategies to consider when they develop or refine a feedback reporting system.
• Will It Work Here? A Decisionmaker’s Guide to Adopting Innovations can help you determine if an innovation would be a good fit – or an appropriate stretch – for your practice or health care organization by asking a series of questions. It links users to actionable Web-based tools and presents case studies that illustrate how other organizations have addressed these questions.
• 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.

These and other tools can be found at the AHRQ website.

Dr. Ganiats is the director for the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ.

This is the sixth in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

Primary care practice is under increasing pressure to evolve. As highlighted in this series, topics such as shared decision making, team-based care, integration of behavioral health into primary care practice, and practice facilitation all offer the potential to enhance your primary care practice. On the other hand, quality of care must remain a top priority during this transformation. While much of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) work in quality of care focuses on the inpatient setting, AHRQ offers many tools and resources to evaluate quality of care and to implement quality improvement into your primary care practice.

• Confidential Physician Feedback Reports: Designing for Optimal Impact on Performance is a guide that informs developers of feedback reports about evidence-based strategies to consider when they develop or refine a feedback reporting system.
• Will It Work Here? A Decisionmaker’s Guide to Adopting Innovations can help you determine if an innovation would be a good fit – or an appropriate stretch – for your practice or health care organization by asking a series of questions. It links users to actionable Web-based tools and presents case studies that illustrate how other organizations have addressed these questions.
• 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.

These and other tools can be found at the AHRQ website.

Dr. Ganiats is the director for the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ.

This is the second in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

Family physicians increasingly recognize the importance of shared decision making, where the patient and provider work together to make a health care decision. Shared decision making means the decision takes into account evidence-based information about available options, the provider’s knowledge and experience, and the patient’s values and preferences. More and more patients and providers want to participate in shared decision making, but the “how” often is neglected in standard medical and graduate medical education. AHRQ provides two resources to assist in your practice’s use of shared decision making.

The SHARE Approach is a five-step process for shared decision making:

• Seek your patient’s participation.
• Help your patient explore & compare treatment options.
• Assess your patient’s values and preferences.
• Reach a decision with your patient.
• Evaluate your patient’s decision.

AHRQ’s SHARE Approach curriculum provides both a quick overview (for the busy clinician) and an extensive course (complete with slides and a trainer’s module). The website provides the clinician the opportunity to learn the key elements of the SHARE Approach, while providing the educator a full curriculum with slides, handouts, and a video in order to demonstrate the approach. Complementing the SHARE curriculum, AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program offers excellent, easy-to-read summaries of evidence reports to help clinicians and consumers make informed health care decisions. AHRQ recently released Lung Cancer Screening Tools, including a decision aid, for patients and clinicians to facilitate discussions about lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography.

The SHARE Approach and other tools can be found at the NCEPCR website.

Dr. Bierman is the director of the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement at AHRQ. Dr. Ganiats is the director for the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ.

This is the second in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

Family physicians increasingly recognize the importance of shared decision making, where the patient and provider work together to make a health care decision. Shared decision making means the decision takes into account evidence-based information about available options, the provider’s knowledge and experience, and the patient’s values and preferences. More and more patients and providers want to participate in shared decision making, but the “how” often is neglected in standard medical and graduate medical education. AHRQ provides two resources to assist in your practice’s use of shared decision making.

The SHARE Approach is a five-step process for shared decision making:

• Seek your patient’s participation.
• Help your patient explore & compare treatment options.
• Assess your patient’s values and preferences.
• Reach a decision with your patient.
• Evaluate your patient’s decision.

AHRQ’s SHARE Approach curriculum provides both a quick overview (for the busy clinician) and an extensive course (complete with slides and a trainer’s module). The website provides the clinician the opportunity to learn the key elements of the SHARE Approach, while providing the educator a full curriculum with slides, handouts, and a video in order to demonstrate the approach. Complementing the SHARE curriculum, AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program offers excellent, easy-to-read summaries of evidence reports to help clinicians and consumers make informed health care decisions. AHRQ recently released Lung Cancer Screening Tools, including a decision aid, for patients and clinicians to facilitate discussions about lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography.

The SHARE Approach and other tools can be found at the NCEPCR website.

Dr. Bierman is the director of the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement at AHRQ. Dr. Ganiats is the director for the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ.

This is the second in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

Family physicians increasingly recognize the importance of shared decision making, where the patient and provider work together to make a health care decision. Shared decision making means the decision takes into account evidence-based information about available options, the provider’s knowledge and experience, and the patient’s values and preferences. More and more patients and providers want to participate in shared decision making, but the “how” often is neglected in standard medical and graduate medical education. AHRQ provides two resources to assist in your practice’s use of shared decision making.

The SHARE Approach is a five-step process for shared decision making:

• Seek your patient’s participation.
• Help your patient explore & compare treatment options.
• Assess your patient’s values and preferences.
• Reach a decision with your patient.
• Evaluate your patient’s decision.

AHRQ’s SHARE Approach curriculum provides both a quick overview (for the busy clinician) and an extensive course (complete with slides and a trainer’s module). The website provides the clinician the opportunity to learn the key elements of the SHARE Approach, while providing the educator a full curriculum with slides, handouts, and a video in order to demonstrate the approach. Complementing the SHARE curriculum, AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program offers excellent, easy-to-read summaries of evidence reports to help clinicians and consumers make informed health care decisions. AHRQ recently released Lung Cancer Screening Tools, including a decision aid, for patients and clinicians to facilitate discussions about lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography.

The SHARE Approach and other tools can be found at the NCEPCR website.

Dr. Bierman is the director of the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement at AHRQ. Dr. Ganiats is the director for the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ.

This is the first in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

Primary care providers deal with a multitude of challenging clinical issues (e.g., providing first contact and preventive care, diagnosis in the undifferentiated patient, care of patients with chronic illness and multiple chronic conditions, keeping up with the literature) while managing a rapidly changing and often difficult health care environment. Despite this complexity and these challenges, primary care clinicians and health care systems strive to provide high-quality health care – i.e., care that is safe, effective, patient centered, timely, efficient, and equitable.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a subdivision of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, recognizes that revitalizing this nation’s primary care system is critical to achieving quality health care. To that end, the agency is committed to helping you improve the care you deliver by offering the latest information, providing evidence syntheses, developing tools for improving primary care practice, and generating data and measures to track and improve performance in primary care.

AHRQ established the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) to be its intellectual home for primary care research. It is the agency’s vehicle for communicating the evidence from AHRQ’s research – and information about how this evidence can be used to improve health and primary health care – to researchers, primary care professionals, health care decision makers, patients, and families.

Every day you rely on guidelines for handling issues that range from prevention to caring for those with multiple chronic conditions. Two of AHRQ’s tools make the use of these guidelines easier.

First, the Electronic Prevention Services Selector (ePSS) is a free application that allows you to search or browse U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations on the Web, a PDA, or a mobile device. You can enter patient-specific information (for example, age, sex, smoking status) to get customized information for your patient. The ePSS brings information on clinical preventive services – recommendations, clinical considerations, and selected practice tools – to the point of care. You can sign up for notifications when there are updates.

The National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) provides health professionals with a tool for obtaining objective, detailed information on evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. After you enter a condition onto the webpage, the site offers key information on guidelines related to that condition – including relevant FDA drug safety alerts – and flags guidelines addressing multiple chronic conditions. The site lets you readily compare different guidelines on the same topic.

Like all of AHRQ’s tools and resources, the ePSS and NGC are freely available. These and other tools can be found at the NCEPCR website.
 

Dr. Bierman is the director of the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement at AHRQ. Dr. Ganiats is the director for the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ.

This is the first in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

Primary care providers deal with a multitude of challenging clinical issues (e.g., providing first contact and preventive care, diagnosis in the undifferentiated patient, care of patients with chronic illness and multiple chronic conditions, keeping up with the literature) while managing a rapidly changing and often difficult health care environment. Despite this complexity and these challenges, primary care clinicians and health care systems strive to provide high-quality health care – i.e., care that is safe, effective, patient centered, timely, efficient, and equitable.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a subdivision of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, recognizes that revitalizing this nation’s primary care system is critical to achieving quality health care. To that end, the agency is committed to helping you improve the care you deliver by offering the latest information, providing evidence syntheses, developing tools for improving primary care practice, and generating data and measures to track and improve performance in primary care.

AHRQ established the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) to be its intellectual home for primary care research. It is the agency’s vehicle for communicating the evidence from AHRQ’s research – and information about how this evidence can be used to improve health and primary health care – to researchers, primary care professionals, health care decision makers, patients, and families.

Every day you rely on guidelines for handling issues that range from prevention to caring for those with multiple chronic conditions. Two of AHRQ’s tools make the use of these guidelines easier.

First, the Electronic Prevention Services Selector (ePSS) is a free application that allows you to search or browse U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations on the Web, a PDA, or a mobile device. You can enter patient-specific information (for example, age, sex, smoking status) to get customized information for your patient. The ePSS brings information on clinical preventive services – recommendations, clinical considerations, and selected practice tools – to the point of care. You can sign up for notifications when there are updates.

The National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) provides health professionals with a tool for obtaining objective, detailed information on evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. After you enter a condition onto the webpage, the site offers key information on guidelines related to that condition – including relevant FDA drug safety alerts – and flags guidelines addressing multiple chronic conditions. The site lets you readily compare different guidelines on the same topic.

Like all of AHRQ’s tools and resources, the ePSS and NGC are freely available. These and other tools can be found at the NCEPCR website.
 

Dr. Bierman is the director of the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement at AHRQ. Dr. Ganiats is the director for the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ.

This is the first in a series of articles from the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This series introduces sets of tools and resources designed to help your practice.

Primary care providers deal with a multitude of challenging clinical issues (e.g., providing first contact and preventive care, diagnosis in the undifferentiated patient, care of patients with chronic illness and multiple chronic conditions, keeping up with the literature) while managing a rapidly changing and often difficult health care environment. Despite this complexity and these challenges, primary care clinicians and health care systems strive to provide high-quality health care – i.e., care that is safe, effective, patient centered, timely, efficient, and equitable.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a subdivision of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, recognizes that revitalizing this nation’s primary care system is critical to achieving quality health care. To that end, the agency is committed to helping you improve the care you deliver by offering the latest information, providing evidence syntheses, developing tools for improving primary care practice, and generating data and measures to track and improve performance in primary care.

AHRQ established the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) to be its intellectual home for primary care research. It is the agency’s vehicle for communicating the evidence from AHRQ’s research – and information about how this evidence can be used to improve health and primary health care – to researchers, primary care professionals, health care decision makers, patients, and families.

Every day you rely on guidelines for handling issues that range from prevention to caring for those with multiple chronic conditions. Two of AHRQ’s tools make the use of these guidelines easier.

First, the Electronic Prevention Services Selector (ePSS) is a free application that allows you to search or browse U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations on the Web, a PDA, or a mobile device. You can enter patient-specific information (for example, age, sex, smoking status) to get customized information for your patient. The ePSS brings information on clinical preventive services – recommendations, clinical considerations, and selected practice tools – to the point of care. You can sign up for notifications when there are updates.

The National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) provides health professionals with a tool for obtaining objective, detailed information on evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. After you enter a condition onto the webpage, the site offers key information on guidelines related to that condition – including relevant FDA drug safety alerts – and flags guidelines addressing multiple chronic conditions. The site lets you readily compare different guidelines on the same topic.

Like all of AHRQ’s tools and resources, the ePSS and NGC are freely available. These and other tools can be found at the NCEPCR website.
 

Dr. Bierman is the director of the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement at AHRQ. Dr. Ganiats is the director for the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research at AHRQ.