Data Management and Computer Programming Support
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) conducts research and provides information on a number of critical issues related to national healthcare research and quality which are of particular interest to government agencies, legislative bodies, health policy makers and other health professionals concerned with health care utilization, patient outcomes, quality, patient safety, expenditures, insurance coverage and components of primary care. The research is primarily based on the annual Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), its predecessor decennial surveys, and the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). Other research topics include health care quality and patient-based outcomes. Data for these analyses are based on a variety of survey data, administrative and medical records, clinical trials data, pharmaceuticals and prescription drug data, as well as patient-based outcomes and health-related quality-of-life (HRQL) assessment data sets including, but not limited to, the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Survey (CAHPS), the Medicare and Medicaid administrative, assessment and survey data (e.g., Health Outcomes Survey, Nursing Home Minimum Data Set (MDS), Medicare QIO (formerly known as PRO) data, and the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS)), other federal and state government health system and related data (e.g., VA, DoD and HRSA health system data, CDC surveys such as NHIS, NHANES, BRFSS, SLAITS), and commercially available health data (e.g., MEDSTAT Marketscan and NCQA Quality Compass).
