PCORI announces $150 million in funding for new health research

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) today announced the approval of funding awards totaling more than $150 million to support new patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) studies, research to strengthen the rigor and quality of patient-centered CER and a project to implement the findings of PCORI-funded research into practice.

Among the nine awards for patient-centered CER, two include support for large, two-phased trials comparing approaches to treatments for heart failure and asthma. Two other large studies will compare health system strategies to improve hypertension control, and another will evaluate the effectiveness of medications used for migraine prevention.

“As a leading funder of patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research, PCORI recognizes the evidence generated from PCORI-funded research helps patients and those who care for them make informed decisions about which health care options will work best for them,” said PCORI Executive Director Nakela L. Cook, M.D., MPH. “These latest awards present significant opportunities to fill important evidence gaps across a broad range of health conditions facing millions of people living in the United States every day.”

This latest round of PCORI funding awards also includes CER studies exploring questions about the value of screening for financial hardship to improve patient-centered outcomes for individuals with advanced cancer, training to increase shared decision making to improve patient experiences during labor, screening approaches for post-traumatic stress disorder in obstetrics clinics, and strategies to care for patients experiencing intimate partner violence.

Several studies will contribute data and strategies on how to optimize use of care delivery approaches to achieve greater equity in and access to care as well as better outcomes among historically underserved populations.

As generating evidence is not the end of the process to improve health outcomes, PCORI also supports efforts to promote the uptake of PCORI-funded CER findings in clinical practice. One of the new awards funds a project to implement a telepsychiatry model of care to serve primary care patients with more complex psychiatric disorders.

In addition, PCORI approved more than $6 million to fund six studies to improve methods for conducting CER and nearly $7 million for four studies that will strengthen the evidence base to inform researchers on how to optimize engagement of patients and other health care decision makers throughout the design and conduct of patient-centered CER.

“PCORI invests in studies focused on methodology and the science of engagement because it takes rigorously designed and conducted comparative clinical effectiveness research – using evidence-based approaches – to generate reliable results,” said Harv Feldman, M.D., MSCE, PCORI’s deputy executive director for patient-centered research programs. “PCORI also funds projects to encourage uptake of results from PCORI-funded comparative clinical effectiveness research to promote trustworthy findings reaching those whom they can help the most.”

Details of these newly funded studies and projects are available on PCORI’s website. All award funding has been approved pending final PCORI contractual considerations. Since 2010, PCORI has invested more than $4.5 billion to fund patient-centered CER and research-related projects.

About PCORI

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is the nation’s leading funder of patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER). By comparing two or more health or health care approaches, CER generates evidence that helps people make better-informed decisions and improves health care delivery and outcomes. PCORI takes a holistic approach to its work, ensuring that patients and other health decision makers are engaged as partners throughout the research process, supporting dissemination and implementation of results in practice, and strengthening clinical research infrastructure to advance patient-centered CER. PCORI is an independent, non-profit organization authorized by Congress. Visit pcori.org.