Due Date: 01/25/21
Funder: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
About the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is the lead Federal agency charged with improving the safety and quality of America’s health care system. AHRQ develops the knowledge, tools, and data needed to improve the health care system and help Americans, health care professionals, and policymakers make informed health decisions.
Background
Since 2016, AHRQ has led a multi-component initiative with two broad aims: to advance patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) evidence into practice through clinical decision support (CDS) and to make CDS more shareable, standards-based, and publicly available (see https://cds.ahrq.gov). The components of the initiative include:
- Engaging a stakeholder community, including patients, clinicians, payers, and developers of CDS.
- Developing prototype infrastructure, called CDS Connect, to author and share interoperable CDS through a publicly-available repository and set of tools.
- Disseminating evidence into practice through grant-funded CDS demonstrations.
- Evaluating the overall initiative.
While significant advancement has occurred relative to stakeholder engagement and prototype infrastructure for sharing CDS, CDS development and implementation continue in siloes, leading to redundant effort across healthcare systems that are developing similar CDS from the same set of evidence. This redundant effort has been estimated to cost the U.S. healthcare system $25 billion. (Johnston, 2003)
Health IT standards hold promise for advancing interoperability and re-use of CDS, thus potentially lowering the collective burden on healthcare systems to independently develop CDS. Standards such as HL7 FHIR and Clinical Quality Language (CQL) are gaining momentum and are helping healthcare systems define the data and logic required by CDS systems, which in turn promote interoperability and re-use. However, standards-based CDS still requires local adaptation, as even commonly adopted EHRs are locally customized and unique to each site.
A critical area of research, therefore, is how healthcare systems can effectively share and re-use standards-based CDS where differences exist among EHRs, workflows, and end users. While literature is beginning to grow in this space, showing how best to support adoption and uptake of CDS remains elusive (Mann, 2019). CDS research projects should contextualize dissemination and implementation of CDS accurately and completely.
In addition, the recently funded Patient-Centered CDS Learning Network identified patient perspective as important to include during CDS design and implementation. CDS projects should incorporate patient perspective in meaningful ways to ensure that CDS systems support patient-clinician relationships and shared decision-making.
About the Opportunity
This Funding Opportunity Announcement invites R18 grant applications that disseminate and implement PCOR evidence into clinical practice through CDS. AHRQ seeks projects that scale interoperable CDS across different health care systems and technologies (e.g., different electronic health records) and that disseminate lessons learned about how to achieve CDS scalability and interoperability.
Eligibility
Higher Education Institutions
- Public/State Controlled Institutions of Higher Education
- Private Institutions of Higher Education
- The following types of Higher Education Institutions are always encouraged to apply for AHRQ support as Public or Private Institutions of Higher Education:
- Hispanic-serving Institutions
- Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
- Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs)
- Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions
- Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs)
Nonprofits Other Than Institutions of Higher Education
- Nonprofits with 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education)
- Nonprofits without 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education)
Governments
- State Governments
- County Governments
- City or Township Governments
- Special District Governments
- Indian/Native American Tribal Governments (Federally Recognized)
- Indian/Native American Tribal Governments (Other than Federally Recognized)
- Eligible Agencies of the Federal Government
- U.S. Territory or Possession
Other
- Independent School Districts
- Public Housing Authorities/Indian Housing Authorities
- Native American Tribal Organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
- Faith-based or Community-based Organizations
- Regional Organizations
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until January 25, 2021.
