AHRQ Quality Indicators (PSI, IQI, PQI, PDI)
AHRQ Quality Indicators are a public-domain set of measures developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Calculated from administrative claims data, they cover patient safety, inpatient quality, prevention, and pediatric quality.
The four AHRQ indicator families
- PSI — Patient Safety Indicators (~26 measures, e.g., postoperative respiratory failure, central venous catheter-related bloodstream infection).
- IQI — Inpatient Quality Indicators (mortality for selected conditions and procedures, utilization).
- PQI — Prevention Quality Indicators (ambulatory care-sensitive admissions like pediatric asthma, diabetes short-term complications).
- PDI — Pediatric Quality Indicators (inpatient pediatric complications, asthma admission rate).
Where they appear in payment
PSI-90 (a composite of selected PSIs) is one of the inputs to the CMS Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program — the bottom-quartile performing hospitals lose 1% of all Medicare DRG payments. The same indicators appear in CMS Value-Based Purchasing, Leapfrog scoring, and many state-level public reporting programs.
Where Vizier fits
Vizier calculates AHRQ Quality Indicators from your inpatient and outpatient encounter data with the published WinQI / SAS specifications. PSI-90 trend continuously visible; underlying patient cohorts drillable for case review. Hospitals that monitor PSI continuously rather than annually consistently score better when CMS publishes the HAC Reduction Program results.