Notice Number: NOT-HS-14-007

Key Dates
Release Date: February 7, 2014
Expiration Date: March 29, 2014

Related Announcements
None

Issued by
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Purpose

Areas of interest

The mission of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) 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. AHRQ achieves this mission by supporting a program of health services research and by working with partners to promote improvements in clinical and health systems practice that benefit patients.

The 2011 Institute of Medicine report, "Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care", found large gaps in our knowledge of how health IT impacts overall patient safety. In response to this finding, AHRQ is interested in funding projects that will generate new evidence on safe health IT practices that could be used by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and others to inform health IT certification and other forms of policy guidance.

AHRQ is specifically interested in projects that promote post-deployment safety testing of EHRs for high prevalence, high impact EHR-related patient safety risks. Projects should include personnel from health IT vendors and health care delivery organizations in the project personnel. Patient Safety Organization involvement is strongly encouraged, as is industry partnership.

Additionally, AHRQ is particularly interested in applications whose specific aims address any of the following:

• Design, implementation, usability, and safe use of health IT by all users, including patients;
• User-centered design and human factors principles applied to health IT to improve safety;
• The use of sociotechnical systems associated with health IT to improve safety; and
• Impact of policy decisions on the safe use of health IT use in clinical practice.

AHRQ will prioritize funding of applications that address at least one of these subjects.

Further Guidance

Use of R01 Funding Mechanism. AHRQ will use its standing R01 Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to support applications submitted in response to this Notice. This FOA, PA-13-045 can be found at https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-13-045.html.

Limitations on Timelines and Funds. Due to limitations on available grant funds, AHRQ currently limits the total (direct plus indirect) costs for the R01 mechanism to no more than $250,000 per year. The project period for large projects can be up to five years.

Application Submission and Special Application Receipt Date. Information about the grant application process, can be found at http://www.ahrq.gov/funding/index.html. Applications focused on areas identified in this Notice may be submitted and will be accepted by AHRQ on a Special Receipt date, which is: March 28, 2014. This Notice will expire on March 29, 2014.

AHRQ will provide updates of new developments and research priorities as research budget information becomes available.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Angela Nunley
Program Analyst, Health IT Portfolio
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Phone: 301-427-1505
Email: Angela.Nunley@ahrq.hhs.gov