March 2009

2008 National Health Care Quality Report

Researchers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality sought to report on progress and opportunities for improving health care quality, as mandated by the U.S. Congress. The research is built on 220 measures that represent four dimensions of quality: effectiveness, patient safety, timeliness, and patient centeredness. For this report, the researchers focused on the state of health care quality for a group of 45 core report measures that represent the most important and scientifically credible measures of quality. The measures selected for inclusion are derived from the most current scientific knowledge and are also measures for which data are available and fit within a framework provided by the Institute of Medicine. Core measures for mental health and substance abuse were suicide deaths and receipt of needed treatment for illicit drug use. A non-core measure was also presented: the receipt of minimally adequate treatment for mental disorders.
Results for mental health measures start on page 72.

The information amassed for the National Healthcare Quality Report since its inception is a growing knowledge base that addresses two critically important questions: "What is the status of health care quality in the United States?" How is the quality of the health care delivered to Americans changing over time?