AHRQ issues new health IT funding opportunities

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has published three new health IT-related funding opportunity announcements and a special emphasis notice, intended for improvements in ambulatory settings and in transitions of care.

The funding opportunities are designed to offer applicants the opportunity to receive incremental support for the conduct of progressively more complex health IT research projects, according to the AHRQ.

The opportunities include:
  • Career Development and Dissertation Research Grants that support and enhance expertise in health IT, research and evaluation methods. It will also enhance the capacity of grantees to participate in multi-disciplinary research teams that apply trans-disciplinary perspectives in health IT research;
  • Small Research Grant to Improve Healthcare Quality through Health IT that supports different types of small research studies including small pilot and feasibility or self-contained health IT research projects; secondary data analysis of health IT research; and economic (prospective or retrospective) analyses of health IT implementation. The grant is limited to $100,000 for up to two years of funding;
  • Exploratory and Developmental Grant to Improve Health Care Quality through Health IT, which supports the conduct of short-term preparatory, pilot or feasibility studies that are needed to inform future health IT implementations, such as the conduct of a health IT research demonstration grant. The projects are limited to $300,000 over two years with no more than $200,000 total costs in a given year; and
  • Utilizing Health IT to Improve Health Care Quality Grant, which supports demonstration research grants that rigorously study health IT implementation and use to improve the quality, safety, effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare in ambulatory settings and in the transitions between care settings. Costs are limited to $1.2 million over three years with no more than $500,000 in total costs in a given year.

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