Notice Number: NOT-HS-14-005
Key Dates
Release Date: December 18, 2013
Issued by
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Purpose
The mission of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality is to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable, and to work with HHS and other partners to make sure that the evidence is understood and used.
One major priority is producing evidence that will increase the affordability, efficiency and quality of health care. AHRQ seeks to develop and spread evidence and tools to measure and enhance the efficiency of health systems the capacity to produce better quality and outcomes while avoiding overutilization, or to maintain quality and outcomes with lower resource use. This includes analyzing variations in quality and resource use, and identifying the factors that differentiate higher-performing (more efficient and higher quality) from lower-performing systems, with special emphasis on understanding the policy-relevant effects of different workforce configurations, organizational strategies, and compensation methods. AHRQ also will fund work to develop and test interventions to improve performance, with the goal of providing promising models to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Intervention (CMMI), states, and private payers and systems.
Health Care Delivery Systems: The Affordable Care Act has catalyzed interest in delivery system reform. AHRQ is interested in funding research that will provide information to compare delivery systems on resource use and quality metrics. Potential research questions include, but are not limited to:
Incentives for Improving Performance of Systems and Providers: The Affordable Care Act, Federal and state regulations, and public and private payers have provided a variety of financial and nonfinancial incentives to improve the performance of health care systems, as well as hospitals, group practices and other providers. Potential research questions include, but are not limited to:
Interventions to Improve Performance: While alignment with external incentives is very important, it is the provider or system that implements interventions to increase efficiency, while maintaining or improving quality, equity, access, and reducing disparities. Potential research questions include, but are not limited to:
Priority Populations. Priority populations continue to be an area of interest to AHRQ. For purposes of this Notice, priority populations include low-income patients and the uninsured along with AHRQ's other priority populations (children, women, elderly, racial and ethnic minorities, and individuals with special health care needs).
Use of Multiple Funding Mechanisms. AHRQ will use standing grant mechanisms such as the R01, R03, R18, and K08 funding mechanisms to support this research. The relevant general AHRQ Funding Opportunity Announcements for R01, R03, R18, and K08 mechanisms can be found at: http://www.ahrq.gov/funding/research/announcements/index.html.
Application Submission. Applicants should consider this Notice active until further notice. AHRQ will provide updates of new developments and research priorities as research budget information becomes available. Applications focused on areas identified in this Notice should be submitted on regular research grant receipt dates and will be reviewed by AHRQ's standing study sections. Information about the grant application process, including e-grant applications and the funding mechanisms noted above, can be found at http://www.ahrq.gov/funding/index.html.
Applicants are encouraged to use relevant AHRQ, DHHS, and federal and non-federal public and private data resources to support these research efforts. Examples of such data may be the MEPS, HCUP, National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), Medicare and Medicaid data resources and other Departmental data resources http://healthdata.gov/.
Inquiries
Please direct all inquiries to:
Michael Hagan
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Center for Delivery, Organization, and Markets (CDOM)
Telephone: 301-427-1409
Email: [email protected]