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Report: Healthcare quality gains slowing
Quality Improvement Monitor, March 7, 2008
The quality of healthcare improved by an average 2.3% a year between 1994 and 2005, a rate that reflects some advances but points to an overall slowing in quality gains, according to annual reports released today by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
The improvement rate, reported in AHRQ's 2007 National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report, is lower than the 3.1% average annual improvement rate reported in the 2006 reports, according to an AHRQ press release. Those reports measured trends between 1994 and 2004.
Quality improvement rates are lower than widely documented increases in healthcare spending. CMS estimates healthcare expenditures rose by a 6.7% average annual rate over the same period.
"Healthcare quality is improving only modestly, at best," AHRQ Director Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, said in a press release. "Given that healthcare spending is rising much faster, these findings about quality underscore the urgency to improve the value Americans are getting for their healthcare dollars."
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