Purpose.
This AHRQ Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), supported by funds provided to AHRQ under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act or ARRA), Public Law 111-5, invites Research Demonstration and Dissemination Grant (R18) applications from organizations to conduct
credit:
demonstrations of (1) broad strategies and/or specific interventions for improving care by redesigning care delivery, or (2) strategies and interventions for improving care by redesigning payment.
(For examples and definitions of terms, see below, Objectives of this Funding Opportunity and Nature of this Funding Opportunity.) The demonstrations will aim to achieve major improvements in care quality (including clinical outcomes and other dimensions), improve access to care, reduce disparities, or improve population-based measures of health outcomes.
The demonstration will address issues related to HHS priorities, including those of Medicare and Medicaid.
In specifying its requirements for using ARRA funds in support of Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) adopts the definition of CER as the conduct and synthesis of research comparing the benefits and harms of different interventions and strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor health conditions in real world settings.
HHS added that interventions compared may include medications, procedures, medical and assistive devices and technologies, diagnostic testing, behavioral change, and delivery system strategies.
The current FOA concentrates primarily on delivery system strategies, which in turn may affect other types of interventions.
In formulating its requirements related to CER, HHS drew on the recommendations of the Federal Coordinating Council for CER and on the 100 priority topics identified by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in its 2009 report, Initial National Priorities for Comparative Effectiveness Research http://www.nap.edu/catalog/1264 8. html