Injuries to the rotator cuff are treatable, but it is unclear which treatment option – surgery or nonsurgical treatments such as exercise or medication – is best.
The hospital admission rate for blacks with hypertension was 161 per 100,000 people in 2006 – nearly 5 times the hospitalization rate for whites (33 admissions per 100,000).
Two new guides now are available to help hospital administrators make important decisions about how to protect patients and health care workers and assess the physical components of a hospital in a catastrophic event.
Nearly 13 percent of workers with employer-sponsored health plans who worked in firms with 10 or fewer employees had premiums of $7,200 or more a year for single-coverage plans in 2008.
Just over half of U.S. men (57 percent) see a doctor, nurse practitioner or physician assistant for routine care, compared to nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of women.
New research finds men are 24 percent less likely than women to have visited their doctor; public service ads launch as part of Men’s Health Week.
AHRQ today announced grants to support efforts by states and health systems to implement and evaluate patient safety approaches and medical liability reforms.
MONAHRQ is a free, MS Windows-based software application that significantly reduces the cost and time an organization would need to spend to compile, analyze and post data on quality of hospital care.
Fewer hospital patients died from complications in their health care between 2001 and 2006, but Asians/Pacific Islanders and Hispanics were less likely to survive than either whites or blacks.
An advanced type of cancer radiation is more successful than traditional radiation in avoiding “dry mouth” when treating head and neck cancers, but it is unknown whether the treatment is better or worse at reducing the size of tumors.
Roughly one-quarter of all hospital patients were readmitted over a two-year period for the same conditions that prompted their initial hospitalization.
The overall proportion of hospital patients who died in the hospital after a heart attack fell by 37 percent between 2000 and 2007.
The proportion of women age 65 and over on Medicare who said that they had been screened for osteoporosis increased from 34 percent in 2001 to 64 percent in 2006.
The gap between the proportion of black and white Americans with asthma who took an inhaled or oral medicine daily to prevent attacks grew wider between 2003 and 2006.
Using bar-code technology with an electronic medication administration record (eMAR) substantially reduces transcription and medication administration errors, as well as potential drug-related adverse events.
Only about half of obese adult Americans were advised by their doctors to cut down on fatty foods in 2006, and the rate had not significantly changed since 2002.
Black children were one-third more likely than white children to be hospitalized for a ruptured appendix in 2006.
Improvements in patient safety continue to lag, according to the 2009 National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report.
One of every 10 adult Medicaid patients who were hospitalized in 2007 for a medical condition other than childbirth had to be readmitted at least once within 30 days of their initial hospital stay that year.
The proportion of Americans with diabetes ages 18 to 64 who reported getting flu shots the previous year rose from 40 percent to 50.5 percent between 2000 and 2007.
The largest study to date of the use of acute care medical services by people with sickle cell disease found four of every 10 had to return to the hospital within 30 days of a previous hospitalization or go to the emergency department for treatment of pain.
Women accounted for nearly 60 percent of the 39.4 million admissions to U.S. hospitals in 2007. About 5 million of these hospital admissions were related to childbirth.
The amount that hospitals charge the uninsured for inpatient care grew by 88 percent between 1998 and 2007.
AHRQ has announced the start of "Healthcare 411 en Español," a new audio news series to provide Spanish speakers with consumer information about their health and health care. Spanish version of this article included.
The hospital costs for treating septicemia increased by an average of nearly 12 percent each year from 1997 to 2007, increasing from $4.1 billion in 1997 to $12.3 billion in 2007.
Heart patients who took a stomach acid-suppressing proton-pump inhibitor along with clopidogrel – a drug that prevents blood clots – were only half as likely to be hospitalized for upper digestive tract bleeding than those who used clopidogrel alone.
Purchases of cholesterol and diabetes prescription drugs by elderly Medicare beneficiaries reached nearly $19 billion in 2007 – about one-fourth of the approximately $82 billion spent for medications for the elderly.
Of the 8 million patients who were admitted to U.S. hospitals on weekends in 2007, approximately one-third received needed major procedures on the day of admission.
About 66 percent of the nearly 20 million state and local government employees were enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans in 2008, compared with 54 percent of private-sector workers.
Nearly 58 percent of the surgeries performed in hospitals were done as outpatient procedures.
Among the 36 percent of U.S. adults age 18 and older who needed to see a specialist in 2007, about 8 percent reported that getting to see one was a big problem.
About 3.5 million motor vehicle crash victims were treated in hospital emergency departments in 2006 for injuries ranging from scrapes and bruises to life-threatening trauma.
Medicare patients accounted for almost half of all stays (45 percent) at rural hospitals in 2007, while the percentage of Medicare beneficiaries who were admitted to urban hospitals was considerably lower (35 percent).
The number of Americans buying prescription drugs to treat digestive conditions climbed over 50 percent, rising from 18.1 million to 29 million people between 1997 and 2007.
Between 1996 and 2006, the average cost for prescription drugs for Americans age 18 to 44 doubled.
One of every three people who died in 2007 in the United States were in the hospital for treatment at the time of their deaths.
AHRQ analyzed the average annual dental expenditures in the 10 states with the highest populations in 2006.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the award of $17 million to fund projects to fight costly and dangerous health care-associated infections, or HAIs.
Two medications commonly used to treat high blood pressure appear to be effective in treating a common type of heart disease known as stable ischemic heart disease.
Total health care expenses for Americans age 45 to 64 in 2006 ($370 billion) were about double the inflation-adjusted total for 1996 ($187 billion).
Hospital emergency departments treated more than 2 million seniors for broken bones, head wounds, cuts and other injuries caused by falls in 2006 at a cost to hospitals of approximately $7 billion for emergency and subsequent inpatient care.
Two interactive computer tools released today will help emergency planners and responders select and run alternate care facilities during disaster situations.
The number of hospital stays for women who had a normal or uncomplicated birth decreased by 43 percent between 1997 and 2007 – from 544,000 to 312,000 stays.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force finds there is insufficient evidence to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening infants for hyperbilirubinemia to prevent chronic bilirubin encephalopathy.
The number of hospital stays for patients who received blood transfusions increased by 140 percent (from 1.1 million to nearly 2.7 million) between 1997 and 2007, representing the largest increase in procedures over the 11-year period not involving pregnancy or childbirth.
The number of Americans admitted to hospitals for treatment of coronary heart disease declined by 31 percent between 1997 and 2007. As a result, coronary heart disease no longer ranks as the leading disease treated in hospitals.
Three drugs, including tamoxifen, reduce a woman’s chance of getting breast cancer, but each drug carries distinct potential harms of its own.
AHRQ has released "Staying Active and Healthy with Blood Thinners," a new 10-minute video to help educate patients about how to use anticoagulant drugs, commonly called blood thinners, safely. The video is available in both English and Spanish.
Particle beam radiation therapy, a technology used to treat several types of cancer, is considered by some clinicians to be better than traditional radiation, but there is limited evidence about its safety compared with other types of radiation therapy.
U.S. hospitals spent roughly $56 billion in 2007 – 16 percent of their overall patient care costs – treating baby boomers ages 55 to 64.
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