AHCPR: ANNOUNCES FUNDING FOR NEW PROJECTS
Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala announcedThis is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
yesterday the beginning of a program designed to help clinicians,
providers and health plans improve the quality of health care by
giving them state-of-the-art scientific information on common,
costly medical conditions and new health care technologies.
Under its Evidenced-based Practice Program, HHS' Agency for
Health Care Policy and Research will award 12 five-year contracts
to institutions in the U.S. and Canada to serve as Evidence-based
Practice Centers (EPCs). Each center will review relevant
scientific material assigned by AHCPR. Their findings will be
produced as "evidence reports" or technology assessments, and
will be disseminated in hard copies and on the World Wide Web.
Shalala said the program "will help clinicians, health plans and
other providers make critical health care decisions using the
best scientific knowledge available." They will tackle specific
topics within broad areas such as adult health, child and
adolescent health, maternal health, geriatrics, rehabilitation,
dental health, mental health and substance abuse, alternative
care and preventive care (HHS release, 6/25).
OTHER INITIATIVES
AHCPR also announced yesterday funding for five new research
projects designed to improve health outcomes, patient
satisfaction and overall quality of care. The projects will
receive $1.19 million for the first year. The five projects are:
the Quality of Well-Being Scale Revision Project at the
University of California at San Diego, which will expand the
application and usefulness of the quality of Well Being Scale;
the Medical Intervention Effectiveness and Outcomes in COPD at
the University of Texas Health Center, which will examine the
effects of exercise on mortality of patients with chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); the Statistical Inference
for Cost-Effectiveness Analysis project at Michigan State
University, which will develop new procedures for testing cost-
effectiveness; the Severity of Lower Respiratory Tract Illness in
Infants project at the University of Rochester, which will
develop a predictive measure of lower-respiratory tract
infections in infants; and the Patient-Centered, Computer-
Assisted Quality Improvement project at Indiana University, which
will extend the techniques of computer-generated reminders to
improving patient satisfaction and outcomes of care (AHCPR
release, 6/25).