A new funding opportunity from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will establish Healthcare Extension Cooperatives to disseminate and implement patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) evidence into health care delivery.
AHRQ will award up to 15 grants of up to $25 million (no more than $6.25 million per year) to build and support state-based Healthcare Extension Cooperatives over five years. To support an initial initiative focused on behavioral health, cooperatives will:
- Work with key stakeholders, including Medicaid and Medicaid managed care organizations; clinicians and staff from health care delivery organizations that fill a safety net role; and patients, families, and caregivers who receive care from safety net providers and are members of uninsured and/or medically underserved populations
- Collaborate with health care organizations to build capacity for patient-centered, evidence-based health care delivery improvements
- Conduct evaluations to ensure cooperative activities are integrated and aligned with the initiative
Additional Funding Opportunities
A future funding opportunity will sustain a National Coordinating Center to provide support, resources, collaborative guidance, and opportunities for mutual learning among cooperatives. A second opportunity will create an independent National Evaluation Center to study how health care extension services vary across cooperatives, assess the impact and equity of these models, identify contextual factors associated with recipient success, and document the barriers and facilitators to the delivery of health care extension services.
Contact Director of Policy Rob Nelb, MPH, at rnelb@essentialhospitals.org or 202.585.0127 with questions.
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