This FOA aims to support applications for innovative collaborative investigations to understand how new health IT strategies can increase the utilization of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in ambulatory care settings and contribute to improved patient-centered health outcomes and quality of care. There is a need to implement and evaluate new approaches to health IT-enabled collection and use of PRO measures in ambulatory practice. Since health IT is a demonstrated enabler of the use of PROs in certain care settings with certain populations and disease types, AHRQ is interested in implementing and evaluating new health IT strategies for incorporating and using PRO measures, including measures relevant to people with MCC, in primary care and other ambulatory care settings.
While applications must be submitted by single, eligible organizations, AHRQ recognizes that the scope and breadth of this project may best be carried out through partnerships of multiple entities and, thus, strongly encourages applications that bring together the skills, experiences, and resources necessary to meet the research objectives. Applicants are strongly encouraged to identify and recruit team members representing key stakeholders (e.g., clinical providers, staff, patients, and health It vendors as appropriate).
An AHRQ-led learning collaborative will focus on improving understanding of best practices for developing and implementing new health IT strategies to collect, integrate, and use PRO data. Grantees awarded through this FOA will be required to participate in the learning collaborative. The learning collaborative will meet on a regular basis by teleconferences as well as meeting in-person annually in the Washington, DC area. Each PD/PI and any key personnel for implementation and evaluation are required to participate in the learning collaborative conference calls and in-person meetings. The applicant needs to budget funds for one in-person meeting annually, identifying which personnel will attend. The PD(s)/PI(s) will actively participate in the plans to promote collaboration among learning collaborative members. The PD(s)/PI(s) and their team will be responsible for collaborating on/co-producing learning collaborative products over the course of the project. These may include (but are not limited to) common frameworks, toolkits, case studies for dissemination.
Regardless of the approach taken to address this FOA, the proposed project must incorporate the use of existing PRO measures. The development of new PRO measures is beyond the scope of this effort. The proposed project should describe the innovative component of the health IT strategy. For the purpose of this FOA, implementing a new EHR system is not considered a new health IT strategy.
Examples of relevant research directions include but are not limited to:
- Develop and evaluate the usability of an innovative interface design to collect PRO measures in ambulatory care settings.
- Implement and evaluate the effectiveness of a health IT strategy for integrating PRO measures into clinical workflow and using them to improve quality of care.
- Develop and implement a health IT strategy to display user-friendly PRO data to clinical providers, patients, and practice staff for patient engagement and shared decision-making.
- Employ health IT strategies to test different modalities in PRO data collection and integration.
- Implement and evaluate a health IT strategy that allows a patient or providers to share the PRO data to foster shared care and care coordination aligned with patients’ goals and preferences.
Deadline: September 25, 2017, September 25, 2018, and September 26, 2019
URL: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-17-247.html
Filed Under: Funding Opportunities