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Practice Improvement

AHRQ has tools and resources that can help hospitals, ambulatory care practices, nursing homes, and other healthcare institutions address the challenges of COVID-19. The Agency has invested in developing and testing tools that facilitate quality, safety, and efficiencies in improving healthcare practice.

Resources

AHRQ ECHO National Nursing Home COVID-19 Action Network
The AHRQ ECHO National Nursing Home COVID-19 Action Network—a partnership between AHRQ, the University of New Mexico's ECHO Institute and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)—provides free training and mentorship to nursing homes across the country to increase the implementation of evidence-based infection prevention and safety practices to protect residents and staff.


PSNet is a compendium of resources on patient safety that highlights emerging strategies to respond to COVID-19, including increased use of telehealth, support of diagnostic safety, and measures to protect nursing home residents.


The purpose of this collaborative is to pilot efforts to improve the development, dissemination and use of "living" COVID-19 guidance and provide up-to-date answers for urgent clinical questions faced by front line healthcare providers and health setting leaders.

Telehealth Resources
Telehealth can allow healthcare professionals to host a range of safe patient encounters while facilitating management of acute and chronic conditions and preventive services. Telementoring, like Project ECHO, can bring scarce clinical expertise to rural or remote locations.

EvidenceNOW
EvidenceNOW's Tools for Change has resources that can be useful to primary care practices adapting to new models of care during COVID-19, such as improving complex processes of care or increasing delivery of appropriate clinical preventive services.


AHRQ's Academy for Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care has a growing list of resources to help address COVID-19's impact on behavior health and primary care

Tools and Toolkits

Surge Toolkit and Facility Checklist
Reopening a closed ("shuttered") hospital to expand surge capacity during COVID-19 requires significant planning. This Toolkit is a step-by-step guide to assist staff responsible for management, legal, facility, staffing, security, materials management, and transportation planning.

Northeastern University Surge Capacity Bed Management Tools
This tool, created by AHRQ-supported researchers at Northeastern University, projects on a rolling basis and individual hospital's bed demand and occupancy. it is freely available to any health system worldwide and can be downloaded from the .

Community-Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) Clinical Decision Support Implementation Toolkit
Helps clinicians and clinical informaticians in primary care and other ambulatory settings implement and adopt a clinical decision support alert for the management of community-acquired pneumonia that can be adapted for COVID-19.

TeamSTEPPS 2.0
Offers solutions to improve organizational collaboration and communication, skills essential to delivering quality healthcare and avoiding medical errors.

Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP)
CUSP can help clinical teams make care safer by combining improved teamwork, clinical best practices, and the science of safety. Clinical teams can employ the CUSP toolkit to build capacity to address healthcare safety issues.

Re-Engineered Discharge (RED) Toolkit
Helps hospitals reduce readmission rates by replicating the discharge process that resulted in 30 percent fewer hospital readmissions and emergency room visits.

Page last reviewed July 2022
Page originally created April 2020

Internet Citation: Practice Improvement. Content last reviewed July 2022. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD.
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