Department of Family Medicine Receives Grant for Public Health Care Reports

By Tammy Carter
Department of Family Medicine

The Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine has received a grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for a study on the development of useful public health care reports.

This grant is part of the broader Science of Public Reporting Initiative, a three-year effort by AHRQ and other federal agencies to build the science of public reporting and put new evidence into practice.

VCU received an $841,000 three-year grant for its study titled, “Engaging Vulnerable Consumers in Developing Useful Public Healthcare Reports.” This project is being led by Daniel R. Longo, Sc.D., professor, senior investigator and special assistant to the chair of the Department of Family Medicine, and is being conducted under the auspices of the Ambulatory Care Outcomes Research Network (ACORN).

This study assesses the preferences of minority diabetic consumers for public report content, design and dissemination and explores how reports can be redesigned to best reflect those preferences.

“We hope to develop reports that will compare how well doctors, clinics and hospitals care for people with diabetes so that they and others in Virginia will have the information they need to make better decisions regarding their diabetes care, which may lead to living better with diabetes,” said Longo, who is research director emeritus in the Department of Family Medicine.

AHRQ, in collaboration with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is supporting 17 exploratory and developmental studies that will inform the content, design, dissemination and underlying data and methodology of public reports.

For more information, visit www.ahrq.gov/qual/value/sciencepubreport.htm and http://www.familymedicine.vcu.edu/research/projects/index.html.

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