Since 2003, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), together with its partners in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has reported on progress and opportunities for improving health care quality. With this fifth annual National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR), these reports will have provided more than 50,000 data points about health care quality in the United States. Has it made a difference? Have Federal and State governmental agencies, provider organizations, insurers, and employers made progress in improving health care quality and safety? While every previous release of the NHQR has attempted to summarize the direction in which health care quality is going,.
