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Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

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Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Director:Robert Otto Valdez
Annual budget:$484.5 million (FY 2023)
Year created:1989
Official website:Office website



The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that performs and funds research related to the quality and effectiveness of the United States' healthcare system. The agency's work ranges from health information technology to patient safety and much of its focus is on providing funding and grants to researchers at universities and other research institutions. Its budget for fiscal year 2023 was $484.5 million.

On March 27, 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that AHRQ would be merged with the office of the Department's Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, to create an Office of Strategy.[1]

History

In 1989, the United States Congress passed legislation that created the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. In 1999 Congress changed the agency's name to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) due to criticism surrounding its medical practice guidelines and involvement with healthcare reform under the administration of Bill Clinton. The organization is based in Rockville, Maryland.[2][3][4][5]

Structure

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Below is an organizational chart of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Robert Otto Valdez assumed the role of director in February 2022. The agency's offices include the following:[6]

  • Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement (CEPI)
  • Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends (CFACT)
  • Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (CQuIPS)
  • Office of the Director (OD)
  • Office of Communications (OC)
  • Office of Extramural Research, Education and Priority Populations (OEREP)
  • Office of Management Services (OMS)

To view the AHRQ Organizational Chart, click here.

Mission

The mission of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is written on its website as follows:

“ The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) mission is to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable, and to work within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and with other partners to make sure that the evidence is understood and used.[7] ”
—Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality[8]

Budget

For the 2023 fiscal year (FY2023), the budget for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) amounted to about $484.5 million. Click show on the table below to view detailed appropriations for FY2023.[9]

Research and initiatives

According to AHRQ's website, it does the following:[10]

“
  • AHRQ invests in research on the Nation's health delivery system that goes beyond the "what" of health care to understand "how" to make health care safer and improve quality.
  • AHRQ creates materials to teach and train health care systems and professionals to put the results of research into practice.
  • AHRQ generates measures and data used by providers and policymakers.[7]
 ”

Noteworthy events

In 1999, Congress considered eliminating the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) due to pushback against its medical practice guidelines and its involvement in the development of a healthcare reform plan under the Clinton administration. When it was created in 1989, it was named the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and worked toward goals that included funding and performing research that would improve healthcare quality and effectiveness in the country, as well as publishing and distributing information on healthcare services. Its other major goal was further standardizing the practice of medicine. It first attempted this by conducting large demonstration projects:[2]

“ The agency attempted to reduce variation in medical practice by carrying out large multidisciplinary, multi-institutional projects that focused on patient outcomes of specific clinical problems. But it later abandoned this approach because it was expensive, descriptive rather than prescriptive, and had little impact on clinical practice.[7] ”
—Robert Wood Johnson Foundation[2]

The agency then altered its strategy, instead producing guidelines for the practice of medicine. Some of these guidelines were criticized by affected providers, who saw the agency as "interfering with the practice of medicine," according to a study conducted by the New York Academy of Medicine and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This led to some industry opposition to continued funding of the agency.[2]

Congress considered this opposition when the time came to either renew the agency's mandate or let it expire. In addition, according to the report, a "new group of Republican legislators wanted to cut government programs, and the agency had worked closely on and was associated with President Clinton's failed health care reform effort." Although Congress renewed the agency's mandate, the new legislation changed the name of the agency to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, eliminating the word "policy." It also clarified that AHRQ was not a regulatory body and effectively ended the agency's development of practice guidelines.[2]

The report by the New York Academy of Medicine identified three major lessons the agency learned from these events:[2]

“
  • The value of engaging in activities that are important to those in the administration and Congress who affect the agency's resources.
  • The need to make key constituencies aware of the agency's activities.
  • The importance of avoiding activities that may generate negative political fallout.[7]
 ”

Today, ARHQ focuses mainly on providing funding and grants for research on healthcare quality and improving the delivery of healthcare services.[3]

On March 27, 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that AHRQ would be integrated into the Office of Strategy.[1][11]

Recent news

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Agency Healthcare Research Quality. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality - Google News

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "HHS Announces Transformation to Make America Healthy Again," accessed June 2, 2025
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, "Agency for Health Care Policy and Research Studies Own History to Avoid Repeating Past Mistakes," September 1, 2006
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 AllGov, "Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality," accessed December 29, 2015
  4. ↑ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, "Centers and Offices," accessed December 29, 2015
  5. ↑ Modern Healthcare, "Trump administration appoints new AHRQ director," May 9, 2017
  6. ↑ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, "Offices and Centers," accessed February 14, 2024
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
  8. ↑ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, "Mission & Budget," accessed December 29, 2015
  9. ↑ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, "Mission and Budget," January 2024
  10. ↑ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, "Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: A Profile," July 2022
  11. ↑ MedPage Today, "Patient Safety Research May Be Imperiled if AHRQ Is Downsized, Experts Warn," accessed June 2, 2025
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