The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has issued a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) for grant applications to conduct research on utilizing health information technology (IT) to scale and spread successful practice models using patient-reported outcomes.
Specifically, the AHRQ funding opportunity is focused on research that demonstrates how health IT can improve patient-centered health outcomes and quality of care in primary care and other ambulatory settings.
“AHRQ is interested in understanding how heath IT can further extend successful PRO measure implementations beyond the initial clinical setting or institution in which the health IT-enabled PRO implementation was originally developed and applied, thereby increasing the impact on practice. There is a need to scale and spread the successful use of PROs in a manner that is efficient, actionable by the physician, supports patients' engagement with their health and care, and improves clinical processes and outcomes,” agency officials stated on the agency website.
Examples of research projects responsive to AHRQ health IT priorities under this FOA include but are not limited to:
- Implementation and evaluation of the use of health IT to facilitate the scale and spread of an existing PRO measure implementation to a larger or different population compared to the population involved in the original implementation (e.g., scale a local implementation to a regional, state, or national level).
- Implementation and evaluation of the use of health IT to facilitate the scale and spread of an existing PRO measure implementation into settings (e.g., primary care vs sub-specialty care) or disease conditions different from those in the original implementation.
- Implementation and evaluation of an innovative and scalable interface design to provide enhanced features to scale and spread the use of PRO measures by clinical providers, patients, health center staff, and other populations in ambulatory care settings.
- Adaptation, implementation, and evaluation of the effectiveness of a health IT implementation strategy to scale and spread PRO measures into rural, minority, low literacy and numeracy, and other underserved populations to reduce health disparities and improve quality of care.
Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis; the first due date is January 25.
