��ƵStatistical Brief Explores Healthcare Spending for Children With Autism

Just over 1 percent of children aged 3 to 17 were treated for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) annually between 2018 and 2022, and the percentage of boys who were treated was three times that of girls. A from AHRQ’s Medical Expenditure Panel Survey explores healthcare spending and utilization for children who received treatment for ASD. Discover how spending varied across service categories, how spending changed as children got older, and how healthcare costs compare with those of children who did not utilize ASD services.

Research Finds Barriers for Rural Patients

Rural Patients Face Growing Travel Times for Surgery

Rural Americans are traveling farther than ever for surgical care, an AHRQ-funded in JAMA found. Using Medicare data from over 12 million admissions between 2010 and 2020, researchers examined trends in travel time for 16 common surgical procedures. The percentage of rural patients traveling more than 60 minutes rose from 37 to 44 percent over that decade. Median travel times also increased from 43 to 48 minutes for low-risk procedures and from 64 to 69 minutes for high-risk ones. In contrast, nonrural patients saw much smaller increases. The greatest growth in travel burden was seen in lower risk surgeries, while some high-risk procedures remained stable. The findings highlight a widening access gap for rural patients, likely driven by hospital closures, provider shortages, and care centralization. The trend underscores a growing need for policy and infrastructure solutions.

Rural Pregnant Women Less Likely To Receive Key Ultrasounds

Nearly one in four pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid whose babies were born with serious heart defects did not receive a second-trimester ultrasound, a key prenatal test, according to a study in JACC: Advances funded in part by AHRQ. Using combined clinical and claims data sets from New York State, researchers linked surgical registry data of 1,506 infants who had heart surgery within 60 days of birth between 2006 and 2019 to their mothers’ Medicaid claims. They examined prenatal imaging utilization among pregnant women whose babies were born with critical congenital heart defects, and they found that patients living in rural areas were 19 percentage points less likely to receive fetal echocardiograms than those living in nonrural areas. Access the .

Celebrating National ASC Month: Unlock SOPS® Resources for Enhanced Patient Safety Culture

In celebration of National Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Month in August, ��Ƶhonors the vital contributions of ASCs in delivering safe, efficient, and high-quality surgical care to patients across communities and within the broader healthcare system. In conjunction with this observance, ��Ƶencourages ASCs to explore valuable free tools offered by the Surveys on Patient Safety Culture® (SOPS®) Program—including the SOPS ASC Survey, the SOPS ASC Database, and other essential resources.

ASCs may administer the survey at any time. Also, they may voluntarily submit data to the SOPS ASC Database, at no cost, during designated submission times. The 2025 ASC Database Report is scheduled for release in October. The next submission period is scheduled for June 2027.

Findings from the 2023 ASC Database Report showed that only 72 percent of respondents rated staffing, work pressure, and pace favorably; however, most respondents (91%) felt their ASCs actively look for ways to improve patients’ safety, and 85 percent ranked their facilities as “Excellent” or “Very good.”

Recording of CAHPS Tools Webinar Now Available

“New CAHPS Tools for Patient Experience Measurement,” a webinar presented by AHRQ’s Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) program, highlighted new, innovative tools to enhance patient experience measurement. The webinar, held June 25, covered the latest surveys in development and newly released surveys, as well as a variety of CAHPS resources designed to support effective survey administration, analysis, and action planning. The presenters answered audience questions on AHRQ’s role as a research agency, the difference between patient experience and satisfaction, use of approved survey vendors, and the availability and use of CAHPS surveys in other languages. Access the recording and presenter materials from this event.

Register for Upcoming Webinars

:
- August 28, 1:30–2 p.m. ET.
- September 5, 11:30–12 p.m. ET.
- September 12, 11:30–12 p.m. ET.
September 9, 1–2 p.m. ET: Patient Safety in Medical Offices: Using SOPS Tools To Drive Improvement.
September 16, 3:30–4:30 p.m. ET: ��ƵQuality Indicators v2025 Software Webinar.

��ƵStats: Medical Care Accessibility by Insurance Type

Nationally, 16.5 percent of adults with Medicaid insurance and 18.4 percent of those without insurance considered their access to medical care to be fair or poor in 2021, compared with just 7.6 percent of those on private insurance and 8.4 percent of those on Medicare. (Source: ��ƵMedical Expenditure Panel Survey Statistical Brief #564, .)

New Research and Evidence

Systematic Review (draft open for comment through August 29): .
Systematic Review (draft open for comment through September 2): .

��Ƶin the Professional Literature

External validation and update of the pediatric asthma risk score as a passive digital marker for childhood asthma using integrated electronic health records. Owora AH, Jiang B, Shah Y, et al. EClinicalMedicine 2025 Jun;84:103254. Epub 2025 May 20. Access the on PubMed®.

Hospital and skilled nursing facility networks: informal relationships and their role in the placement of traditional Medicare beneficiaries with serious mental illness. Bucy TI, Maust DT, Cross DA. Health Serv Res 2025 Aug;60(4):e14465. Epub 2025 Mar 4. Access the on PubMed®.

Hospice visits and perceived hospice quality among assisted living residents. Guo W, Cai S, Li Y, et al. J Am Geriatr Soc 2025 Jul;73(7):2212-9. Epub 2025 May 19. Access the on PubMed®.

The impact of an enhanced data visualization tool for hypertension in the electronic health record on physician judgments about hypertension control. Shaffer VA, Wegier P, Valentine KD, et al. J Gen Intern Med 2025 Jul;40(10):2226-32. Epub 2025 Feb 7. Access the on PubMed®.

Enrollment in dual-eligible special needs plans and disenrollment rates. Meyers DJ, Macneal E, Offiaeli K, et al. JAMA Health Forum 2025 Jul 3;6(7):e251748. Access the on PubMed®.

Estimating primary care spending in the United States: toward a common method. Zhan C, Liu L, Simpson M. Med Care 2025 Jul;63(7):514-9. Epub 2025 May 13. Access the on PubMed®.

Large language models to summarize pediatric admission notes into plain language. Ebby CG, Tse G, Bethel J, et al. Pediatrics 2025 Jun;155(6):e2024069515. Access the on PubMed®.

Application of algorithm-based treatment approach to low back pain in the emergency department. Strickland KJ, Kim HS, Seitz AL. Phys Ther 2025 Apr 2;105(4). Access the on PubMed®.

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