Why Use MONAHRQ for Health Care Reporting? March 2015 Note: This is one of eight slide sets outlining MONAHRQ and its value, available at

What Is MONAHRQ? Windows-based software from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) that can help you and your organization create your own website-based, comparative health care performance reports. Evidence-based – uses measures, data sources, and reporting techniques that are based on the latest research Quick – generates websites and reports in hours or days, not months Easy – designed to be intuitive so no training is needed to use it Flexible – allows customization to ensure that the websites and reports are relevant Free – provided by AHRQ at no cost to anyone who wants to produce health care performance websites and reports The purpose of MONAHRQ is to help increase transparency by disseminating evidence-based information that is understandable and useful for improving health care safety, quality, and affordability. For more information, see the “What Is MONAHRQ?” presentation. 2

Reasons Why People Use MONAHRQ To meet transparency requirements and spur improvement in health care safety, quality, affordability, and patient experience As a cost-effective way to create a health care performance website with reports, using much less staff time and funding than needed to design a website with reports from scratch To conduct internal or private validation of your own data, including identifying errors in the data, such as missing or incorrect values As a common platform for sharing information across multiple organizations, agencies, and/or departments To ensure that the websites and reports created use measures and design approaches that are evidence-based, nationally recognized, and consistent with others around the country 3

What’s Involved in Measuring and Reporting on Health Care? People use MONAHRQ because it is an evidence-based, low-cost way to produce effective health care websites and reports. Without MONAHRQ, the typical steps during the measurement and reporting process can be complex, time consuming, and expensive. 4

Options for Creating Health Care Performance Reports Several options exist for measuring and reporting on health care: You can rely on reports from the Federal Government or others ► Information in the reports is chosen by others, and while the reports may be free, they might not meet your organization’s specific needs or regional characteristics You can create your own websites and reports ► Requires significant staff and financial resources to build knowledge and address each of the steps, which are often very technical (see list on previous slide) ► Gives you total control, but may reduce the opportunity for even greater impact created by being consistent with others who are also reporting to motivate improvement in many of the same topics You can use MONAHRQ ► MONAHRQ enables your organization to more easily use measures and data, and generate websites and reports on health care safety, quality, and affordability ► MONAHRQ websites and reports reflect the latest research on what is most effective, yet the software also allows for customization 5

MONAHRQ Websites MONAHRQ can generate two types of websites designed for specific audiences For use by medical clinicians, administrators, policymakers, researchers and analysts, with detailed statistics For use by consumers and the general public, with infographics and guided education 6

MONAHRQ Reports Examples of reports that can be created using MONAHRQ: Individual hospital profiles, with an overall patient experience rating and a list of the highest cost DRGs Quality of care comparisons across hospitals, including patient experience ratings Emergency Department (ED) utilization Potentially avoidable hospitalizations by county Hospital use rates for conditions and procedures, by county Estimated cost savings by reducing avoidable hospital stays Hospital utilization and cost for top diagnosis related groups Physician profiles, with medical group and hospital affiliation Nursing home profiles, plus reports on quality of care, inspection results, and staffing information Trending reports on utilization, showing changes over time 7

What Can MONAHRQ Do? A few examples of what you can do with MONAHRQ: Easily generate websites and reports based on leading edge research Create consistency in your data structure and validate your data Establish a datasets library from your data and Federal sources Select for your reporting an array of hospital measures (quality, utilization, patient experience, cost), nursing home measures (quality, health inspection results, staffing ratios) and physician information Customize measure information (title, description, etc.), report details and the ‘look and feel’ of your websites, then save to easily re-use them later Set up search engine optimization in your MONAHRQ-generated website, plus get feedback from people who use your website and reports Easily update websites and reports, and include new measures as they are added to future versions of MONAHRQ Use the Open Source Framework to import new data sources and design new reports to customize your MONAHRQ reports 8

MONAHRQ Limitations MONAHRQ is not intended to do certain things It is not a tool for detailed statistical analysis and calculation using raw data It is not meant to replace electronic medical records or patient registries 9

How Is MONAHRQ Evolving? MONAHRQ was first released in 2010 and has evolved over time to: ► Respond to a rapidly changing health care environment ► Capitalize on opportunities to create more value by adding data sources, measures, and other features enabled by advances in technology The most recent major version of MONAHRQ is 6.0, which was released in Spring 2015 Released roughly annually, the following major versions of MONAHRQ are also planned: ► MONAHRQ 7.0 ► MONAHRQ 8.0 Patches are released as necessary. Beginning with version 5.0, MONAHRQ includes auto-notification of updates, and an easier updating process. 10

What Support Is Available for People Who Use MONAHRQ? A comprehensive Host User Guide Available at Also built into the software itself, so you can get right to the information you need when you are using MONAHRQ Quick Start Guide, Fact Sheet, and Other Materials Available at Personalized technical assistance and connection with other Host Users Technical assistance from the MONAHRQ team: Technical assistance from the MONAHRQ team: Opportunities to connect with other Host Users on webinars or calls 11

For Further Information Visit Visit to access these additional slide : What Is the Value of Health Care Measurement and Reporting? What Is MONAHRQ? How To Get Started With MONAHRQ What Types of Websites and Reports Can MONAHRQ Generate? Who Can Use MONAHRQ? Using MONAHRQ’s Open Source Framework Future Plans for MONAHRQ and How To Get Involved To receive updates about MONAHRQ, ask to join our listserv by ing 12