May 28, 2025, Issue #959 AHRQ Stats: Insurance Types Among High SpendersMedicare and private insurance paid for over three-quarters of expenses among people with the top 5 percent of healthcare expenses between 2018 and 2022. (Source: AHRQ Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Statistical Brief #560, Concentration of Healthcare Expenditures and Selected Characteristics of People with High Expenses, United States Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population, 2018–2022.) Today's Headlines:| An AHRQ-funded study published in NPJ Digital Medicine found that including lab results significantly improved the accuracy of differential diagnoses generated by large language models. Researchers tested five models—GPT-4, GPT-3.5, Claude-2, Llama-2-70b, and Mixtral-8x7B—using 50 clinical vignettes based on real patient cases. Each model generated a list of possible diagnoses with and without lab data. Adding lab results improved diagnostic accuracy by up to 30 percent across models. GPT-4 performed the best, achieving 55 percent Top-1 accuracy and 79 percent lenient accuracy. The models correctly interpreted common lab tests such as liver function and toxicology panels. These findings underscore the potential of large language models as supplemental diagnostic tools and the importance of structured clinical data in AI-driven decision support. Access the abstract. |
| Identifying and helping families who are experiencing food insecurity, or a lack of consistent access to enough food, is not yet done as part of routine clinical care at children’s hospitals across the country. In an AHRQ-funded study published in Hospital Pediatrics, researchers aimed to increase food insecurity screening for hospitalized children from 0 to 60 percent and provide location-based food resources to eligible families. Researchers screened 2,800 patients in a tertiary, freestanding children’s hospital from 2021 to 2023. With the Model for Improvement developed by Associates in Process Improvement, screening rates for food insecurity increased from 0 to 77 percent. Researchers concluded that integrating food insecurity screening is a feasible and effective approach to addressing the issue, leading to better health outcomes for children. Access the study. |
| Safety Culture in Healthcare: Measuring and Responding, a webinar sponsored by the AHRQ-led National Action Alliance for Patient and Workforce Safety, highlights the importance of safety culture and teamwork in healthcare settings. This webinar, held April 15, was the third in a three-part series on safety culture in healthcare. Speakers from AHRQ, Duke Center for the Advancement of Well-being Science, and Westat discussed how strategies such as conflict resolution and leader engagement are essential for improving healthcare worker well-being and patient outcomes. Panelists answered audience questions on how to get physicians to participate in the patient safety culture surveys and recommended ways to encourage a teamwork climate. Access the recording and presenter materials from this event. |
| Primary care providers face mounting pressure to deliver better outcomes with limited resources. AHRQ’s EvidenceNOW initiative helps practices overcome these challenges with evidence-based strategies that work in real-world settings. From improving heart health to advancing behavioral health integration, EvidenceNOW offers tailored guidance for small and medium-sized practices, including access to performance feedback, quality improvement coaching, and easy-to-implement clinical tools designed to build sustainable improvements in quality and patient care. The EvidenceNOW Model is a blueprint for delivering external support to primary care practices to improve healthcare quality and implement new evidence into care delivery. It is also designed to help primary care practices increase their capacity for quality improvement with the goals of improving patient and practice health. Explore tools to help strengthen your practice. |
| AHRQ in the Professional LiteratureOphthalmology examinations in children with skull fractures and underlying focal hemorrhage. Breeden K, Christian CW, Wood JN, et al. Pediatr Emerg Care. 2025 Mar 12. [Epub ahead of print.] Access the abstract on PubMed®.
"Everything is electronic health record-driven": the role of the electronic health record in the emergency department diagnostic process. James TG, Mangus CW, Parker SJ, et al. JAMIA Open. 2025 Apr;8(2):ooaf029. Epub 2025 Apr 23. Access the abstract on PubMed®.
Association between left ventricular assist device infections and number of shared patients among care providers: a network analysis. Hawkins RB, Stewart JW, Kim KD, et al. Ann Thorac Surg. 2025 May 10. [Epub ahead of print.] Access the abstract on PubMed®.
Ambulatory medication safety events in high-risk patients with diabetes before and after a COVID-19 clinic slowdown. Young RA, Blair S, Teigen K, et al. J Patient Saf. 2025 Jun 1;21(4):240-5. Epub 2025 Apr 10. Access the abstract on PubMed®.
Development of secure infrastructure for advancing generative artificial intelligence research in healthcare at an academic medical center. Ng MY, Helzer J, Pfeffer MA, et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2025 Mar;32(3):586-8. Access the abstract on PubMed®.
Antibiotic Diversity Index: a novel metric to assess antibiotic variation among hospitalized children. Markham JL, Hall M, Shah SS, et al. J Hosp Med. 2025 Jan;20(1):8-16. Epub 2024 Aug 4. Access the abstract on PubMed®.
The foundational capabilities of large language models in predicting postoperative risks using clinical notes. Alba C, Xue B, Abraham J, et al. NPJ Digit Med. 2025 Feb 11;8(1):95. Access the abstract on PubMed®.
A survey of team culture and learning organization in the resuscitation of neonates with congenital anomalies: a single center experience. Bostwick A, Ades A, Rodriguez-Paras C, et al. Resusc Plus. 2025 Mar;22:100877. Epub 2025 Jan 24. Access the abstract on PubMed®. Contact Information
For comments or questions about AHRQ News Now, contact Karen Fleming-Michael at Karen.FlemingMichael@ahrq.hhs.gov or (301) 427-1798. |
