NQMC - Resources – Search Forms

Creating your own search page

We have updated our search approach to enable external developers to build on both the National Guideline Clearinghouse™ (NGC) and National Quality Measures Clearinghouse™ (NQMC) search engines. Developers can create a HTML search form that collects user criteria on their own site and passes that data to the NGC or NQMC site to display the search results (figure 1).

figure 1: external site -> NGC/NQMC search results page -> NGC/NQMC summaries

A developer must use the following rules to create a form on their site to access the NGC/NQMC search.

The form must use a "GET" method (as opposed to a "POST" method)
The action of the form must be http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov/search/searchresults.aspx
The inputs "type" and "num" are required for the search to work. The value for type must be 5 and the value for num can be any integer greater than 0.
Examples:
<input type="hidden" id="type" name="type" value="5">
<input type="hidden" id="num" name="num" value="20">
Any combination of fields from the detailed search page can be used to narrow the search results.
Any value in a list you want to pass as a default for filtering guidelines must be placed into an input field of type="hidden" with the same name as the list. The values for the input must be comma separated.

Form Example:

figure 2:

Here is the HTML of the form
<form action="http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov/search/searchresults.aspx" method="get" ID="Form1">
   <input type="hidden" name="type" value="5" id="type">
   <input type="hidden" name="num" value="20" id="num">
   <input type="hidden" name="la" value="104,105" ID="la">
   <input type="hidden" name="lv" value="115" id="lv">
   <input type="text" id="sx" name="sx">
   <br />
   <input type="submit">
   <br />
</form>

This example passes 2 hidden variables to filter on "Age Range" and "Vulnerable Populations" along with a user specified search word. Click here to view the search example. A list of all variables and their values can be found in the glossary at the bottom of the page.

Here is a list of all possible variables that can be used to search the NQMC/NGC sites. The values for these varaibels are listed below

Variable code	Variable Label	Required
type	Type	yes
num	Num	yes
sx	Keyword	no
dc	Disease/Condition	no
ti	Treatment/Intervention	no
la	Age Range	no
lg	Gender	no
lv	Vulnerable Populations	no
lcs	Care Setting	no
lp	Professionals Who Provide Health Care	no
ll	Lowest Level of Health Care Delivery Addressed	no
lcu	Current Use	no
lin	Institute of Medicine Care Need	no
lid	Institute of Medicine Domain	no
ldp	Measure Domain	no
lrd	Publication Date	no

Below are tables of all the values for each list on the detailed search. This is up to date as of 9/26/03

Age Range: code = la

Value Code	Value Name
102	Adult: 80 years old and older
101	Adult: 65-79 years old
100	Adult: 45-64 years old
99	Adult: 19-44 years old
103	Adolescent: 13-18 years old
104	Child: 6-12 years old
105	Child: Pre-school; 2-5 years old
107	Infant: 01-23 months old
108	Infant: Newborn
109	Infant: Low birth weight
110	Infant: Very low birth weight

Gender: code = lg

Value Code	Value Name
112	Female (only)
113	Male (only)

Vulnerable Populations: code = lv

Value Code	Value Name
115	Children
116	Disabled
117	Frail Elderly
118	Homeless
119	Illiterate/Low-literate Populations
120	Immigrants
121	Medically Uninsured
122	Mentally Ill
123	Minority Groups
124	Non-English Speaking Populations
126	Poverty Populations
125	Prisoners
127	Rural Populations
128	Terminally Ill
129	Transients/Migrants
131	Urban Populations
132	Women

Care Setting: code = lcs

Value Code	Value Name
50	Ambulatory Care
60	Ancillary Services
52	Behavioral Health Care
53	Community Health Care
69	Emergency Medical Services
56	Home Care
57	Hospices
58	Hospitals
61	Managed Care Plans
62	Nursing Homes
64	Physician Group Practices/Clinics
65	Rehabilitation Centers
66	Residential Care Facilities
67	Rural Health Care

Professionals Who Provide Health Care: code = lp

Value Code	Value Name
299	Measure is not provider specific
75	Advanced Practice Nurses
222	Allied Health Personnel
71	Chiropractors
72	Clinical Laboratory Personnel
73	Dentists
74	Dietitians
223	Emergency Medical Technicians/Paramedics
76	Nurses
78	Occupational Therapists
80	Pharmacists
81	Physical Therapists
82	Physician Assistants
83	Physicians
84	Podiatrists
85	Psychologists/Non-physician Behavioral Health Clinicians
729	Public health professionals
86	Respiratory Care Practitioners
87	Social Workers
88	Speech-Language Pathologists

Lowest Level of Health Care Delivery Addressed: code = ll

Value Code	Value Name
90	National
91	Regional
92	States
93	Counties or Cities
94	Multisite Health Care Organizations
95	Single Health Care Delivery Organizations
96	Group Clinical Practices
97	Individual Clinicians

Current Use: code = lcu

Value Code	Value Name
34	Accreditation
30	Collaborative inter-organizational quality improvement
31	Decision-making by businesses about health-plan purchasing
32	Decision-making by consumers about health plan/provider choice
33	Decision-making by health plans about provider contracting
37	External oversight/Department of Defense/TRICARE
38	External oversight/Indian Health Service
36	External oversight/Maternal and Child Health Bureau
41	External oversight/Medicaid
42	External oversight/Medicare
43	External oversight/Prison health care systems
40	External oversight/Regional, county or city agencies
44	External oversight/State government program
45	External oversight/Veterans Health Administration
303	Federal health policymaking
46	Internal quality improvement
35	National health care quality reporting
47	Quality of care research
304	State health policymaking

Institute of Medicine Care Need: code = lin

Value Code	Value Name
136	End of Life Care
137	Getting Better
138	Living with Illness
139	Staying Healthy

Institute of Medicine Domain: code = lid

Value Code	Value Name
141	Effectiveness
552	Efficiency
553	Equity
142	Patient-centeredness
143	Safety
144	Timeliness

Measure Domain: code = ldp

Value Code	Value Name
8	Access
7	Outcome
9	Patient Experience
6	Process

Publication Date: code = lrd

Value Code	Value Name
2003	2003
2002	2002
2001	2001
2000	2000
1999	1999
1998	1998
1997	1997