NQMC - How to Search

How to Search

The National Quality Measures Clearinghouse™ (NQMC), sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides you with two options for searching:

Basic Search

Detailed Search

The NQMC Search and Detailed search options support the use of the Boolean operators, parenthetical grouping, and wildcard/truncation characters.

Search Tips

Words entered this way:	Will be searched in a way that:
Diabetes	Finds the word diabetes -- No variations
*"diabet"**	Finds the word diabetes, diabetic, and other word ending variations
(hip or knee) AND arthroplasty	Finds the the terms hip and arthroplasty or the terms knee and arthroplasty
"heart failure"	Finds the exact phrase heart failure
diabetes AND pregnancy	Finds the words diabetes and pregnancy anywhere in the measure summary
colon OR colorectal	Finds the word colon or the word colorectal, but not necessarily both

Boolean Operators

The Boolean operator "AND" narrows a search, retrieving only those measures containing at least one term from each concept. The AND operator is very good for narrowing a search to retrieve those measures most relevant to your topic.

The Boolean operator "OR" broadens a search, retrieving all measures containing at least one of the search concepts entered, but not necessarily both. The OR operator is very good for linking synonyms or related concepts in order to retrieve as many relevant measures as possible.

Using Parentheses

You can also use parentheses to construct your search strategies. See example in Search Tips section above.

Wildcard/Truncation

You can find plural forms of words or word-stems using the '*'. Asterisks can be placed at the start of a term or at the end or a term.

Searching With Phrases

The use of double quotation marks around your search phrase (e.g., "cervical cancer screening") is recommended if you would like to narrow your search to find summaries that contain the specific phrase. This search is more likely to retrieve content specifically related to your search expression.

Searching With Multiple Phrases and/or Boolean Operators

The use of double quotation marks is required for complex searches that include multiple phrases and/or Boolean operators, parenthetical grouping, or wildcard/truncation characters. For instance, when your search query contains an operator, you must enclose any multi-word phrase in double-quotation marks. Take for example the following search expression:

Aspirin AND "Cardiovascular Disease" AND (Mortality OR "Death*")

Note the use of double quotation marks around the phrase "Cardiovascular disease" and around the wildcard/truncation for "Death*".

Automatic Concept Mapping

As appropriate, the NQMC search engine attempts to map (match) the specified search terms/phrases against a standard table of disease/condition and treatment/intervention concepts derived from the U.S. National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Unified Medical Language System (UMLS).

If a match is found in the table, the NQMC then searches for these terms in the Disease/Condition and/or Treatment/Intervention fields in the database.

If a match is not found in the table, the NQMC searches the terms/phrases as a text word(s).

Here are some examples of how the concept mapping works:

heart attack is searched as myocardial infarction
diabetes is searched as diabetes mellitus

Textword Searches

In addition to concept mapping, NQMC will attempt to find the terms or phrases specified in your search query within the text of the NQMC summary. If you are looking for a measure related to a specific phrase, we recommend that you enclose your phrase in quotes.

Running your Search

Once you have entered your search criteria, click on the "Search" button to run the search and the results will appear on your screen.

Sorting and Displaying Search Results

NQMC will automatically return your search results sorted by relevance, with the most relevant measures listed first. This is derived through the use of a term-weighting algorithm.

An alternative option for sorting your search results by publication date is available through the Detailed Search.

From the search results page, you can either:

Display a measure summary for a particular title (The default view is the Brief Summary.)

OR
Build a list of measures to view as a side-by-side comparison.

Frequently Asked Questions - Searching

Is NQMC searching the complete, full-text measure for my search terms?

No. In the Basic Search mode, NQMC searches the contents of the Complete Summary for any measure. In the Detailed Search mode, NQMC searches the specific field in the database corresponding to the criteria you enter or select. This is done to improve the relevance (precision) of the search results.

Is the NQMC search engine case sensitive?

No, NQMC searches do not recognize the difference between upper and lower case letters.

My search returned a results page stating "no related measures were found" -- Why doesn't NQMC have any measures on my topic?

It is possible that a search may not find any measures matching the criteria you specified. This can happen for several reasons:

Your search may be too narrow -- try broadening your search using the "OR" operator or truncating some of the words using the asterisk "*" symbol.
You may have misspelled a word
The NQMC Web site may not yet have the measure you are looking for -- its content is constantly changing, with new measures added frequently. Bookmark this site and make sure to check back often. Also, you can sign-up to be notified by e-mail when new content is added to the site.

Sometimes when searching, I hit the "Back" button of my browser and get a "Page Cannot be Displayed" error message. Is there something I can do to prevent this error?

This problem is related to your Internet browser settings, particularly if you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). You may be able to resolve this issue by changing your browser settings:

Go to "Tools" in the upper menu bar of your browser and select "Internet Options"
Select the "General" tab
Click on "Settings" in the group box labeled "Temporary Internet Files"
Under the group labeled "Check for newer versions of saved pages," select "Every visit to the page"
Select "Ok" and then "Ok" again
Close and re-open your browser