Plans to downsize the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality are casting uncertainty over the future of federal quality and safety efforts, MedPage Today reported March 27.
The move is part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to dramatically restructure HHS and lay off 10,000 full-time employees, saving $1.8 billion annually. Under the restructuring, AHRQ will merge with the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation to create the Office of Strategy. The new office will focus on improving research that supports HHS’ priorities and improves federal health program effectiveness. The extent of layoffs at AHRQ was unclear as of March 27.
The move has raised urgent questions among industry leaders about how the agency’s core functions — particularly its work on patient safety, diagnostic safety and healthcare-associated infections — will be maintained.
“If it means deep cuts to safety research or resources for assessing the state of healthcare in America (e.g. HCUP), then it will be bad,” David Newman-Toker, MD, PhD, director of the Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, told MedPage Today. “These things need expansion, not reduction, in order to ensure the safety of patients and maximize value in healthcare.”
Other leaders shared similar concerns, warning that cuts to AHRQ’s funding could threaten the infrastructure that health systems rely on to improve care and protect patients and staff.
“Any cuts to AHRQ’s funding will erase decades of progress and have devastating consequences including unnecessary deaths and harms to patients and the workforce … and critical reductions in patient safety research funding,” Patricia McGaffigan, RN, senior advisor for patient and workforce safety at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, told MedPage Today.
View the full article here.
Editor’s note: Becker’s has reached out to AHRQ for comment and will update the article if more information becomes available.
