Health IT at AHRQ

AHRQ's health information technology (health IT) initiative is part of the Nation's strategy to put information technology to work in health care. By developing secure and private electronic health records for most Americans and making health information available electronically when and where it is needed, health IT can improve the quality of care, even as it makes health care more cost-effective.

The broad mission of AHRQ's health IT initiative is to improve the quality of health care for all Americans. The Agency has focused its health IT activities on the following three goals:

• Improve health care decisionmaking.
• Support patient-centered care.
• Improve the quality and safety of medication management.

To address the mission, AHRQ has invested over $300 million in contracts and grants to over 200 communities, hospitals, providers, and health care systems in 48 States to promote access to and encourage the adoption of health IT. These projects constitute a real-world laboratory for examining health IT at work and aim to achieve the following:

• Help clinicians provide higher quality, safer health care.
• Put the patient at the center of health care.
• Stimulate the implementation of health IT, especially in rural and underserved areas.
• Identify the most successful approaches and barriers to health IT implementation.
• Make the business case for health IT by evaluating costs and benefits.

For additional information on AHRQ's health IT initiative, sign up for e-mail updates or subscribe to AHRQ's free monthly Patient Safety and Health Information Technology E-newsletter.