PCORI to Fund Health System Implementation Projects
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is preparing to spend $50 million to work with healthcare delivery systems and provider-affiliated health plans to undertake implementation projects in their care delivery settings.
To address the gap between research and the uptake of research findings, PCORI’s Dissemination and Implementation (D&I) program is charged with heightening awareness of the results from PCORI-funded research and with advancing efforts to put these findings into practice.
The Health Systems Implementation Initiative (HSII) is a new D&I program funding initiative. Selected projects will have the goal of promoting the uptake of specific PCORI-funded evidence in practice.
PCORI noted that HSII Participants will benefit from a streamlined pathway to potential PCORI funding support, as well as opportunities to collaborate with and learn from other like-minded organizations.
The goals of this initiative include:
• Engage the comprehensive experience and expertise that resides in healthcare delivery systems and provider-affiliated health plans;
• Leverage healthcare delivery systems’ and provider-affiliated health plans’ commitment to and enthusiasm for providing high-quality, evidence-based care;
• Refine and put in place strategies and approaches for implementing evidence-based practices in real-world settings;
• Accomplish meaningful reach within the communities served by healthcare delivery systems and provider-affiliated health plans;
• Lay the groundwork for future, nationwide scale-up through demonstration of implementation approaches and through program evaluation that documents successes and remaining challenges; and
• Facilitate the transfer of health systems’ learnings across HSII Participant systems and beyond.
PCORI stressed that HSII is not a research initiative. it does not have the goal of supporting research on the comparative clinical effectiveness of healthcare interventions nor on the effectiveness or comparative effectiveness of implementation strategies. The initiative’s goals are to build toward the achievement of broad and sustainable uptake of evidence, rather than gaining generalizable knowledge to advance science.
Qualifications for participation include:
• Commitment to launching and sustaining evidence-based improvements in care;
• Composition (including the relevant care- and non-care delivery components) and staffing structure (including corporate organization and leadership structure);
• Experience successfully implementing and evaluating practice change;
• Potential to achieve substantial and meaningful reach;
• Experience serving under-resourced patients and communities; and
• Capacity and infrastructure to support program evaluation.
Once selected, HSII participants will enter into a Master Funding Agreement (MFA) with PCORI and will be able to apply for capacity-building funding to undertake activities to bolster their ability to undertake HSII Implementation Projects and apply for funding to undertake HSII Implementation Projects that have the goal of achieving uptake of evidence from specific PCORI-funded research by their specific organizations, to improve health care and health outcomes.
Once accepted into the initiative, HSII participants will have the opportunity to lead efforts to support changes in care and care delivery to improve health care and patient health outcomes. HSII is intended to facilitate lasting change within participating systems and lay groundwork for broader adoption of evidence-based practices.
Healthcare delivery systems and provider-affiliated health plans can apply now to become an HSII participant. Notices of Intent are due on March 29, 2022.
