AHRQ Comparative Effectiveness Research Grants

AHRQ Comparative Effectiveness Research Grants

AHRQ Comparative Effectiveness Research Grants

AHRQ announced, on August 6th, their intention to support new CER projects, with the $300million appropriated from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for support of CER.

ARRA funding will focus, initially, on 14 priority conditions established by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003.

AHRQ is soliciting research grant applications for CER in the amount of $148 million for evidence generation. This includes $100 million for the Clinical and Health Outcomes Initiative in Comparative Effectiveness (CHOICE), a new, coordinated, national effort to establish a series of prospective pragmatic clinical comparative effectiveness studies that measure the benefits treatments produce in routine clinical practice and will include novel study designs focusing on real-world and under-represented populations, and $48 million for the establishment or enhancement of national patient registries.

Additional grant funding includes; $29.5 million to support innovative translation and dissemination grants for CER, as well as $20 million to support training and career development in CER.

Requests for contracts for CER will provide $9.5 million to establish an infrastructure to identify new and/or emerging issues for comparative effectiveness review investments. Also, $10 million will establish a Citizen’s Forum to formally engage all stakeholders, and to expand and standardize public involvement in the entire Effective Health Care enterprise.

Additionally, AHRQ anticipates supporting other grants ($1 million) and enhancing existing contracts for evidence synthesis ($50 million), evidence generation ($24 million), translation and dissemination ($5 million), and salary and benefits for ARRA-related full-time equivalent positions ($3 million).