Abt Associates will assist the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in developing performance measures for injurious falls in nursing homes and re-hospitalization of patients discharged from hospital to home health care. This work will help the AHRQ evaluate and develop baseline measures for a science-based measurement strategy(s) to quantify the performance of the agency's Long-Term Care (LTC) Portfolio. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the lead federal agency charged with improving the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of healthcare for all Americans. AHRQ sponsors and conducts research that provides evidence-based information that helps policymakers, healthcare administrators, clinicians, patients, and other healthcare decision makers make more informed decisions. The mission of the AHRQ LTC Portfolio is to improve quality and safety of long term care services, reduce unnecessary services and associated hospitalizations, and provide tools to better inform consumer decisions regarding LTC. As part of this project Abt Associates will:

• Evaluate current measurement methodologies and CMS administrative databases that have been used (or could be used) to develop performance measures
• Develop science-based methodologies and computer programs for the development of the new measures
• Develop new baseline measures
• Obtain stakeholder input, validating and benchmarking the newly developed baseline performance measures
• Construct the final measures for injurious falls in nursing homes and re-hospitalization of patients discharged to home health care
• Document all procedures and programs so that the outcome measures development can be replicated, using the same methodology

The resulting outcome measures will assist the AHRQ in evaluating the impact of the LTC Portfolio's efforts in the translation of evidence-based research into practice and policy.