Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Minority Health (OMH)
Learn how five organizations have made a business case for addressing disparities in health care quality and access. Organizations such as hospitals, health plans, health systems, and others may see their own motivations and challenges reflected in these examples. These case studies increase the evidence base for health organizations in support of building a business case to reduce health disparities.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Minority Health (OMH)
Learn how to identify, prioritize, and take action on health disparities by championing the Disparities Impact Statement in your organization. Participants receive personalized technical assistance focused on
strengthening your quality improvement program through a series of consultations from subject matter experts.
Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Minority Health (OMH)
Focused quality improvement efforts should be targeted to populations at risk for disparities. Explore this guide for resources and concepts key to addressing disparities and improving health care quality throughout your organization.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Minority Health (OMH)
Chronic diseases pose a significant problem in the United States resulting in substantial morbidity, mortality, disability, and cost. The CMS Office of Minority Health has designed an interactive map, the Mapping Medicare Disparities Tool, to identify areas of disparities between subgroups of Medicare beneficiaries (e.g., racial and ethnic groups) in health outcomes, utilization, and spending. It is an excellent starting point to understand and investigate geographic and racial and ethnic differences in health outcomes. This information may be used to inform policy decisions and to target populations and geographies for potential interventions.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Each year, somewhere between 700,000 and 1,000,000 people in the United States fall in the hospital. A fall may result in fractures, lacerations, or internal bleeding, leading to increased health care utilization. Research shows that close to one-third of falls can be prevented. Fall prevention involves managing a patient’s underlying fall risk factors and optimizing the hospital’s physical design and environment. This toolkit focuses on overcoming the challenges associated with developing, implementing, and sustaining a fall prevention program.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
This Core Elements is a guide for antibiotic stewardship program implementation in resource-limited settings that have fragile health systems and lack robust, regulatory frameworks. It builds off the Core Elements resources originally created for U.S. healthcare settings to outline structures and functions associated with effective programs. The guide contains practical, high-impact strategies based on both expert opinion as well as experiences in implementing antibiotic stewardship programs at the national and facility-levels to improve antibiotic use and fight antibiotic resistance. The guide provides a range of activities that a government or individual facility can implement based on the resources available.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
This document provides guidance on practical strategies to implement antibiotic stewardship programs in small and critical access hospitals. The suggestions provided are based on discussions with staff in small and critical access hospitals, several of which have implemented all of the CDC Core Elements.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
Optimizing the use of antibiotics is critical to effectively treat infections, protect patients from harms caused by unnecessary antibiotic use, and combat antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic stewardship programs can help clinicians improve clinical outcomes and minimize harms by improving antibiotic prescribing. The Core Elements are intended to be an adaptable framework that hospitals can use to guide efforts to improve antibiotic prescribing. The assessment tool that accompanies this document can help hospitals identify gaps to address.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
The questions in this section are laboratory-specific and should be directed to the facility’s laboratory director or other staff that have knowledge of the
practices at the laboratory that performs the facility’s C. difficile testing.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
This assessment is meant to capture your awareness and perceptions of policies and practices related to CDI prevention at the facility or unit in which
this assessment is being administered.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
The National Action Plan directs federal agencies to accelerate response to antibiotic resistance by presenting coordinated, strategic actions to improve the health and well-being of all Americans across the One Health spectrum. It has pushed transformative improvements across the country that strengthen and expand the ability to respond to these threats. The National Action Plan supports five main goals: 1. Slow the Emergence of Resistant Bacteria and Prevent the Spread of Resistant Infections; 2. Strengthen National One Health Surveillance Efforts to Combat Resistance; 3. Advance Development and Use of Rapid and Innovative Diagnostic Tests for Identification and Characterization of Resistant Bacteria; 4. Accelerate Basic and Applied Research and Development for New Antibiotics, Other Therapeutics, and Vaccines; and 5. Improve International Collaboration and Capacities for Antibiotic-Resistance Prevention, Surveillance, Control and Antibiotic Research and Development.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
This resource reviews approaches to the diagnosis of sepsis, describes approaches to empiric treatment of sepsis, supports the recognition of when to stop and narrow antibiotic therapy in patients with suspected sepsis and discusses durations of therapy for patients with sepsis.
