AHRQ’s Primary-Care Related Data Resources
AHRQ's Compendium of U.S. Health Systems
The Compendium is the foremost public resource for data on characteristics of healthcare organizations over time. Enumerating each organization and detailing its key features, the annual files enable users to see the changing landscape of healthcare organizations. This suite of files improves the dissemination of patient-centered research evidence throughout healthcare systems and practices by providing detailed insights into the structures of these organizations.
Within the collection of data is the outpatient site linkage file, which contains street-level information on over 283,000 sites. Site specialty data can be used to identify and study primary care practices. In addition, the group practice linkage file can be used to link primary care provider data with information on system affiliation and parent owners. Each of the files provides new insights on ownership relationships and system affiliation in primary care.
In a 2023 Health Affairs article, Compendium data was used to show that the number of primary care providers in vertically integrated systems increased from 49% to 51% between 2018 and 2021.
Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Tools and Surveys
The purpose of AHRQ’s Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) Program is to boost our scientific understanding of patient experience with healthcare as part of a larger effort to advance the delivery of safe, patient-centered care. The CAHPS Clinician and Group surveys are used to evaluate patient experience in medical offices or group practices, including primary care settings. Patient experience encompasses the range of interactions that patients have with the healthcare system, including their care from health plans, and from doctors, nurses, and staff in hospitals, physician practices, and other healthcare facilities. CAHPS surveys measure what actually happened, or how often something happened to the patient in a healthcare setting, according to patients. Patients are the best, or sometimes the only source of the information collected by the CAHPS surveys.
Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP)
The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) is a primary source of data for preventable hospitalizations and ED visits, which flag potential healthcare quality problem areas that need further investigation, provide a quick check on primary care access or outpatient services in the community, and help organizations identify unmet needs in their communities. HCUP includes the largest collection of longitudinal hospital care data (inpatient, emergency department and ambulatory surgery) and related administrative data tools in the United States. Encounter-level data contain patient demographics (age, race/ethnicity, rural/urban residence, community-level income), expected payer, ICD-coded diagnoses and procedures, revenue codes, length of stay, charges that can be converted to costs, and discharge disposition. For a quick reference guide on HCUP, refer to the HCUP Fact Sheet (PDF, 280 KB; HTML).
Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) is a nationally representative household survey of the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population conducted annually by AHRQ since 1996. The MEPS collects detailed information on each household member’s health characteristics, healthcare use and expenditures, insurance coverage, and demographic characteristics. This information includes medical visits to physician offices, clinics, and hospital outpatient offices as well as provider characteristics (practice specialty for physicians and provider type such as physician assistant or physical therapist for non-physicians), payments by source, and selected information on the content of every visit reported by the household. Using this information, one can construct a definition of primary care similar to a "broad definition" used in other work (PDF, 270 KB). For additional information about MEPS and its use to measure primary care spending in the U.S. population, see the following publications:
- Cohen JW, Cohen SB, Banthin JS. The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey: A national information resource to support healthcare cost research and inform policy and practice. Medical Care 2009; 47(7 supp 1):S44–S50.
- Decker SL, Zuvekas SH. Primary care spending in the U.S. population. JAMA Intern Med 2023; 183(8): 880-881. 3
- Reid R, Damberg C, Friedberg MW. Primary care spending in the fee-for-service Medicare population. JAMA Intern Med 2019;179(7):977-980.
- Reiff J, Brennan N, Fuglesten Biniek J. Primary care spending in the commercially insured population. JAMA 2019;322(22):2244-2245.
Social Determinants of Health Database
This database was developed to make it easier to find a range of well documented, readily linkable social determinants of health (SDOH) variables across domains without having to access multiple source files, facilitating SDOH research and analysis. Variables in the files correspond to five key SDOH domains: social context (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, veteran status), economic context (e.g., income, unemployment rate), education, physical infrastructure (e.g., housing, crime, transportation), and healthcare context (e.g., health insurance).
Surveys on Patient Safety Culture
AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture (SOPS) Medical Office survey asks healthcare providers and staff in medical offices, including primary care settings, about the extent to which their organizational culture supports and promotes patient safety. The Medical Office SOPS survey also has two optional supplemental items sets for survey customization: SOPS Medical Office Diagnostic Safety and SOPS Medical Office Value and Efficiency supplemental item sets. The SOPS program is currently developing a supplemental item set on workforce safety for the Medical Office SOPS survey.
