The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is committed to improving healthcare safety and quality and generating the knowledge and tools to achieve measureable improvements in healthcare through evidence-based decision-making. The tools provided on this website demonstrate how to combine hospital discharge data with the clinical content contained in laboratory results to enhance the value of administrative data.

In 2007, AHRQ funded three Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Partner Pilot Projects and one Planning Project to build upon the value of the newly collected POA indicator in administrative data sets and to explore the benefits of adding specific laboratory data. The inclusion of laboratory data—such as chemical, blood gas, and hematology readings—with administrative databases has been shown to provide more accurate risk-adjustments and better measures of patient safety events and healthcare outcomes. The Laboratory Data Toolkit provides a comprehensive set of materials needed for adding laboratory results to hospital administrative data that were assembled during the course of the AHRQ Pilot and Planning contracts or identified by other Partners to assist others with enhancing the clinical content of administrative data.

The Laboratory Data Toolkit is targeted to state data organizations, such as HCUP Partners, who collect statewide hospital administrative data, as well as to the individual hospitals interested in collecting laboratory data and applying it to administrative data. These resources include materials for educating data organizations and stakeholders in the initial stages of adding clinical information, building the business case for collecting laboratory data, and surveys that gauge hospital readiness and resources.

Toolkit Editor's Note: Although information and links within this Toolkit were current during the course of the project and are periodically updated, content may occasionally change.

Laboratory Data Toolkit Sections

• Background: Presentations and publications related to the Pilot and Planning projects and illustrating the significance of collecting laboratory data.



• Initiation Tools: Introductory presentations and articles for educating stakeholders, data sharing and meeting preparation materials, and business case and capacity assessment tools to use in the initial stages of the project.



• Planning Tools: Materials to assist with planning for different stages in the development of the project.



• Communication Tools: Communication strategies and channels to exchange information with hospitals and other stakeholders.



• Training Tools: Media to convey the importance of adding lab data elements and to train hospital staff about data standardization using LOINC®.



• Data Standards, Collection, and Transmission Tools: Technical material for clinical data standards and tools for data collection and transmission.



• Feedback and Reporting Tools: Ideas for informing hospitals and stakeholders about the quality of their reporting and assisting them in analyzing results for hospital-specific quality improvement, as well as lessons learned.



• Projects in Progress: Information about AHRQ grants to states to explore linking existing state data with additional database enhancements.