Field Partnerships to Conduct and Use Research
The Integrated Delivery System Research Network (IDSRN) is a model of field-based research that links the Nation's top researchers with some of the largest health care systems to conduct research on cutting-edge issues in health care on an accelerated timetable. Select for Fact Sheet.
2005 Awards | 2004 Awards | 2003 Awards | 2002 Awards | 2001 Awards | 2000 Awards
Awards in Fiscal Year 2005
Chronic Care and Patient Centeredness
Data and Methods
Emergency Preparedness
Organization and Design of Health Care
Patient Safety and Quality of Care
Prevention
Chronic Care and Patient Centeredness
Effect of the Patient Activation Measure on Chronic Care
Partner: Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Description: This task order will explore use of the concepts of patient activation and patient centeredness in select chronic care populations to: (1) evaluate the effectiveness of the Patient Activation Measure (PAM) in measuring improvement over time in patients' self-management of chronic conditions and on health care outcomes; (2) evaluate the effect of the PAM on patient centeredness and patient preparedness for self-management of chronic disease; and (3) explore the utility of the PAM from the providers' perspective.
Period: 9/05-2/07
Funding: $299,950
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Data and Methods
Improving Data and Methodology on Health Insurance Coverage in Federal and State Surveys
Partner: University of Minnesota
Description: This project will address several tasks: (1) a review of the literature and related information on why four major Federal surveys that produce data on health insurance coverage provide different results; (2) analysis of intra-State variations in State-level estimates of the uninsured in 6-10 States and the rationale for such variation; (3) analysis of emerging forms of "non-insurance" and safety net coverage mechanisms and implications for measuring insurance status in surveys based on discussions with key personnel and the experience of State survey data available to the State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota; and (4) analyses and consultation on these issues as requested by the HHS Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.
Period: 9/05-8/06
Funding: $250,000
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Emergency Preparedness
Model for Health Professionals' Cross Training for Mass Casualty Respiratory Needs
Partner: RTI International
Description: Mass casualty scenarios often require mass respiratory support involving ventilators. Many States, localities, and hospitals have identified a major deficiency in the utilization of equipment such as ventilators due to an extreme shortage of health care personnel who are trained to manage, to some extent independently, patients on ventilators. One way to address to this critical shortage is to examine the training theory of "cross-training" as a feasible technique to adopt for this situation. This task order will inform the development, implementation, and evaluation of a model for cross training of health professionals responsible for providing ventilator support to mass casualties. The model developed under this task order will be evaluated for efficiency and effectiveness.
Period: 4/05-4/06
Funding: $424,628
Models and Tools for Mass Casualty Surge Requirements
Partner: Abt Associates
Description: The overall objectives for this project are to: (1) define the specific assets and capabilities necessary for effective medical surge capacity in a terrorist, natural, or industrial event resulting in mass casualties, using mathematical modeling techniques for chemical, biological, and nuclear/radiological events; and (2) create a stand-alone, Web-based tool to help emergency planners recognize the specific resources health care facilities need to surge effectively during terrorism-related, natural, or industrial emergencies of varying magnitude.
Period: 2/05-3/06
Funding: $548,365
National Mass Patient and Evacuee Movement, Regulating, and Tracking System
Partner: Abt Associates
Description: The objectives of this project are to: (1) evaluate existing models to develop a scenario-based model for movement, regulating, and tracking patients/evacuees using two demonstration cities for planning and responding to a mass casualty event of small, medium, and large (catastrophic) size; (2) develop the capabilities and requirements for transportation assets and related equipment, and personnel support required for the scenarios in the model; (3) develop an interactive, Web-based planning tool based on the model for Federal, State, and local planners to determine the capabilities and requirements for movement, regulating, and tracking casualties of an event over time (e.g., 24 hours, 48 hours, 96 hours, 1 week, etc.) in order to facilitate the determination of local capabilities and federal augmentation assets; and (4) make national recommendations for the development of a national system.
Period: 9/05-3/07
Funding: $489,952
Integrated Patient Tracking/Locator Model
Partner: RTI International
Description: The goal of this project is to develop a system for integrating and managing data pertaining to tracking casualties, victims, and/or individuals affected by large scale events.
Period: 8/05-8/06
Funding: $474,802
Model for Adapting Community Health Call Centers To Support Outpatient Health Care and Monitoring in a Major Health Care Crisis
Partner: Denver Health
Description: The goal of this project is to develop, implement, and test a model to adapt community health call centers—such as poison control centers, nurse call lines, hotlines, etc.—to support home management/shelter-in-place approaches in certain mass casualty or health emergency events. The model will help advise the community on how to self-triage, identify symptoms, and call for help or advice. The model will include support for home management, such as visiting professionals, diagnostic testing, and mental health intervention.
Period: 8/05-8/06
Funding: $425,000
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Organization and Design of Health Care
Managing and Evaluating Rapid Cycle Process Improvements as Vehicles for Hospital System Redesign
Partner: Denver Health
Description: The objectives are to: (1) develop structures and processes capable of coordinating and aligning approximately 50 rapid-cycle process improvement projects that will take place in a wide range of departments and units within Denver Health; (2) develop assessment (evaluation) methods and metrics for evaluating the implementation and impact of these projects; (3) provide timely feedback to project participants and to those charged with coordinating projects for the hospital as a whole and use this feedback to foster learning about rapid-cycle projects and the overall redesign effort; (4) use the evaluation methods and metrics to assess the overall contribution of these rapid cycle projects to hospital improvement and draw lessons for future efforts at hospital improvement and transformation at Denver Health and elsewhere; and (5) summarize and disseminate lessons learned from these projects at the microsystem level to achieve hospital-wide change (i.e., organization level) through coordinated microsystem change.
Period: 6/05-11/06
Funding: $349,997
Medical Emergency Team Learning Opportunity
Partner: RTI International
Description: This task order offers opportunities to IDSRN members to attend an international conference, observe an international consensus conference (learning from cross-national perspectives), and actively participate in roundtable discussions focusing on organizational and systems-level design issues and options in medical emergency/rapid response teams (MET/RRT) adoption and implementation. The project will gather crude data on the incidence of MET/RRT patients to create one or more profile(s) of the MET/RRT patient and support discussions on the epidemiology of MET/RRT response. Products will include one or more reports for publication that will summarize key issues from roundtable discussions on MET organizational and systems-level issues and a MET training video to be broadly disseminated to U.S. target audiences.
Period: 6/05-4/06
Funding: $124,976
An Organizational Approach to Serving Patients With Low Health Literacy
Partner: Emory University
Description: This task order's objective is to design, implement, and evaluate an organizational approach to serving individuals with low health literacy. Organizational approaches might include redesigning care processes, using information technology and decision support, conducting educational activities, and building effective teams. The project will produce evidence of successful approaches, as well as provide an implementation tool for others who attempt to replicate the approach.
Period: TBD
Funding: $500,000
Compendium: Examples of Payment-Quality Alignment, Misalignment, and Realignment
Partner: Abt Associates
Description: Abt will develop a compendium of examples illustrating alignment, misalignment, and realignment between payment and quality. The compendium will include a conceptual alignment-misalignment framework and summarize findings, strategies, and principles for payment reform (realignment) discussions. Of particular interest is identifying instances in which providers and payers have negotiated a solution, thereby moving from misalignment to alignment in one or more quality areas, or creating a business case for quality improvement where none existed before. Examples in the compendium will include: a variety of payment schemes (e.g., fee for service, capitation, partial capitation); the continuum of delivery settings, (e.g., office-based physicians, hospitals, nursing homes); and the six Institute of Medicine quality aims (safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable care).
Period: 9/05-7/06
Funding: $300,000
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Patient Safety and Quality of Care
Patient Safety Analysis Training: a DoD/AHRQ Partnership
Partner: Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Description: The Department of Defense (DoD) Patient Safety Program extends collaboration between AHRQ and the DoD to develop a proper set of training curriculum modules to analyze medical error reports and data. This will include risk assessment, causal analysis, case-based reasoning, sense-making, and change implementation. The training curriculum will be consistent with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) 2004 report on patient safety. This task order provides for services and material to translate a vast array of knowledge that has been attained in recent research regarding medical event reporting and bring it to bear within a rigorous, mature training program.
Period: 3/05-3/06
Funding: $499,996
Antidepressant Medications and Suicidal Behavior in Children and Adolescents
Partner: HMO Research Network
Description: A scientifically sound and feasible plan will be used to analyze one or more existing large databases of community-treated children and adolescents (generally defined as subjects under age 19) in order to address as many questions as possible within the 6-month duration of this task. These include, but are not limited to: (1) linkages, if any, between completed suicides and antidepressant use in youth that may suggest causality; (2) evidence of any increased rates of suicidal attempts, emergency room visits, and/or hospitalizations for suicidal behavior among youths treated with antidepressants; (3) associations, if any, between specific antidepressants and suicidal behavior; (4) gender differences between antidepressant use and suicidal behavior; and (5) evidence of linkages between antidepressants and aggression to others.
Period: 8/05-2/06
Funding: $149,999
Improving the Quality of Early Cancer Care
Partner: RTI International
Description: This task order will focus on how cancer care within complex managed care networks can be designed/redesigned to improve the quality of care at significant decision points along the continuum from suspicion of cancer to treatment plan. The primary criteria for quality assessment and improvement will be the six IOM goals of safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency, and equity. For each decision point addressed, the project team may develop and test one or more interventions to improve the care in any or all of these goal areas. Particular attention will be paid to the accuracy, timeliness, and completeness of the information transmitted among providers (both within and across organizational units) and patients. The project will develop decision tools or aids that could be readily applied in diverse care delivery settings that reflect today's complex managed care systems. Operational quality-of-care metrics may be developed/used to assess provider and organizational performance.
Period: 8/05-8/06
Funding: $249,933
Security Checkpoints and Patients With Radiopharmaceuticals
Partner: Abt Associates
Description: Because of new security measures implemented in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many cases of nuclear medicine patients being stopped by law enforcement officials have been reported. In many instances, the patients have expressed a lack of knowledge that their procedure involved administration of radionuclides and that their bodies still retained some of that radioactivity. This study will examine the consistency in practices across various hospitals and clinics pertaining to: (1) determination of when patients receiving radiopharmaceuticals can be released from care; (2) types of information and radiation dose-reduction instructions that are provided to patients; and (3) methods for communicating such information to patients.
Period: 9/05-2/07
Funding: $99,885
Developing a Targeted Injury Detection System (TIDS)
Partner: RTI International
Description: The study objective is to develop and deploy a prospective triggers system (the Targeted Injury Detection System, or TIDS) for highly prevalent adverse events. The TIDS combines indicators from both administrative data and medical record information. The TIDS must be able to deploy in multiple systems across the U.S., and it must operate within hospital and health systems with diverse electronic health record (EHR) systems including institution-specific (i.e., homegrown) and vendor-based (e.g., McKesson) EHRs, as well as in paper-based systems. TIDS will address three common sources of hospital-based injuries: adverse drug events, hospital-acquired infection, and pressure ulcers/injuries. It will build on the IOM-recommended structure of case finding, evaluation, and classification; use explicit criteria within each step so that it is possible to generate a reliable external audit of the safety data systems; and function at a level and in a form that could be implemented manually and electronically by small, rural hospitals as well as larger hospitals/hospital systems.
Period: 3/05-9/06
Funding: $382,610
Implementing a Targeted Injury Detection System To Reduce Inpatient Injuries
Partner: RTI International
Description: This companion study to the "Developing a Targeted Injury Detection System (TIDS)" will support participation in the TIDS study of as many as three additional hospitals/hospital systems that were selected by the RTI consortium with input from AHRQ staff. The RTI consortium will direct the work of the collaborators who receive funding via this task order and Emory, the sole respondent and awardee for a competed IDSRN Request For Task Order (RFTO) that preceded this sole source RFTO to the RTI International IDSRN. Selected collaborators will provide input to the RTI team during development and alpha testing and will participate in validation via beta testing of the TIDS; they will also help refine the system for widespread dissemination and use.
Period: 8/05-1/07
Funding: $677,336
Implementing a Targeted Injury Detection System To Reduce Inpatient Injuries
Partner: Emory University
Description: This companion study to the "Developing a Targeted Injury Detection System (TIDS)" task order will support participation by the Emory IDSRN in the TIDS study. RTI will direct the work of Emory in conjunction with the work of other selected hospital collaborators. Collaborators will provide input to the RTI team during development and alpha testing and will then participate in validation of the TIDS via beta testing; they will also help refine the system for widespread dissemination and use.
Period: 8/05-1/07
Funding: $174,666
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Prevention
Increasing Chlamydia Trachomatis (Ct) Screening of Young, Sexually Active Women Enrolled in Commercial Health Plans
Partner: Emory University
Description: This project will: (1) ascertain whether interventions have been implemented in plans with significant increases in Ct screening rates; (2) assess the barriers, facilitators, and costs of implementation for interventions designed to improve Ct screening rates with a focus on network model plans, or determine whether plans can identify intervening factors that may have contributed to increased Ct screening rates; (3) assess how screening rates compared before and after implementation of any interventions in such plans; and (4) develop and disseminate a "best practices" guide or compendium to other U.S. network model health plans and other organizations. Emory will collaborate with the National Committee on Quality Assurance on this project.
Period: 9/05-8/06
Funding: $149,779
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Current as of October 2005
Internet Citation:
IDSRN Project Awards: Field Partnerships to Conduct and Use Research. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/research/idsrnproj.htm
540 Gaither Road Rockville, MD 20850