HHS Grants $17 Million for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Wednesday that three sets of grants and cooperative agreements totaling nearly $17 million have been made available for patient-centered outcomes research—or what also is referred to as comparative effectiveness research.

The three-year funds—made available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)—is to be used to establish a network of PCOR centers, enable PCOR in pediatric emergency medicine, and supply building space for community-based providers to engage in this type of research.

The funds will be used by providers "to bring patient-centered research knowledge into everyday clinical decision-making for the diverse and vulnerable populations that HRSA serves, and that are often under-represented in this kind of research," says HRSA Administrator Mary Wakefield.

Five cooperative agreement awards will go to organizations in four states to create the Community Health Applied Research Network (CHARN). This project will be used to demonstrate how safety net providers and academic institutions can partner together to create an effective infrastructure that supports patient-centered outcomes research.

The CHARN consists of a Central Data Management Coordinating Center, based at the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals' Center for Health Research in Portland, OR, and four networks selected as research "nodes" in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Oregon. The nodes are part of a consortia of safety net providers located in 17 states.