Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality February 1, 2024 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (CQuIPS) Division of Quality Measurement and Improvement (QMI) invites public comment in response to this Request for Information (RFI). The AHRQ Quality Indicators (QI) program maintains inpatient quality indicators (https:// qualityindicators.ahrq.gov/measures/IQI_TechSpecTechSpec) and patient safety indicators (https://qualityindicators.ahrq.gov/measures/ PSI_TechSpec), several of which are relevant to maternal health care. Specifically, the QI program maintains measures of obstetric trauma, birth trauma, and cesarean delivery calculated at the hospital level using administrative data. However, severe maternal morbidity during an inpatient stay may result from a host of complications, such as sepsis, cardiac failure, stroke, respiratory distress, and renal failure. While state-level rates of severe maternal morbidity are available from AHRQ (https://datatools.ahrq.gov/hcup-fast-stats/?tab=special- emphasis&dash=92), experts have noted some shortcomings of this measure. This RFI seeks comments on the usability, feasibility, and likely uptake of a measure of severe maternal morbidity to be validated, refined, and maintained by the QI program, with the goal of providing data for maternal health service improvements. While a measure of severe maternal morbidity is currently available from AHRQ and the Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA), several experts have suggested that this algorithm could benefit from refinements.