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 ...

People in the top 1 percent of healthcare expenses spent an average of $147,071 in 2022, a decrease of approximately $30,000 from 2021. (Source: AHRQ Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Statistical Brief ...

Between 2018 and 2022, 21.7 percent of healthcare expenditures were associated with the top 1 percent of spenders. The bottom 50 percent of spenders accounted for less than 3 percent of expenditures. ...

There were 68.6 million outpatient prescription opioid fills between 2021 and 2022. Hydrocodone (25.2 million fills), oxycodone (19.2 million fills) and tramadol (14.1 million fills) accounted for ...

Between 2021 and 2022, average annual total outpatient prescription costs for oxycodone totaled $1.9 billion, and costs for hydrocodone totaled $700 million, accounting for nearly 75 percent of the ...

Overall, the rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia increased by more than 100 percent between 2019 and 2021 regardless of hospital type. This increase ranged from 133.9 percent at critical access ...

The rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia during inpatient stays increased by 20.1 percent between 2016 and 2019. (Source: AHRQ Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Statistical Brief #313, ...

The rate of MRSA diagnoses on admission among expected self-pay hospitalizations decreased from 130.1 per 10,000 stays in 2019 to 114.1 per 10,000 stays in 2021, and the rate among hospitalizations ...

A new interactive tool from AHRQ allows researchers, policymakers and others to explore trends in hospital care for sepsis, a life-threatening condition that is among the most expensive to treat in ...

In 2021, 15.5 percent of current smokers reported transportation issues that resulted in difficulties accessing daily living needs. People with chronic conditions reported similar reliability ...

The rate of central-line associated bloodstream infections at any hospital type increased substantially between 2019 and 2021. Small hospitals saw an increase of 98.4 percent—the largest increase at ...

Editor’s Note: Due to the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, AHRQ News Now will not publish again until Jan. 7. Black non-Hispanic women and Hispanic women both experienced a 43 percent increase in ...