The Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ) released it’s seventh annual quality tracking reports – 2009 National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report. These reports measure trends in effectiveness of care, patient safety, timeliness of care, patient centeredness, and efficiency of care. The reports present, in chart form, the latest available findings on quality of and access to health care.
Findings from the National Healthcare Quality Report indicate overall quality of U.S healthcare system is slowly improving, while there is little progress in eliminating hospital-acquired infections.