AHRQ's National Resource Center (NRC) for Health IT supports the Agency's mission of developing and disseminating evidence and evidence-based tools on how health IT can improve health care quality, safety, and efficiency.  

AHRQ initially established the NRC for Health IT in 2004 as a way of communicating and delivering technical assistance to its grantees. Since then, AHRQ has made the NRC available as a public resource for sharing research findings, best practices, lessons learned, and funding opportunities with health IT researchers, implementers, and policymakers. More than 10,000 documents, presentations, articles, and tools are freely available on the NRC. Traffic on the NRC has steadily grown since its inception, with recent usage averaging more than 40,000 unique site visits per month.

In addition to AHRQ's Health IT Program, the NRC infrastructure supports other government health IT efforts. For example, the NRC supports the Office of the National Coordinator's (ONC's) "HealthIT.hhs.gov" site.

The Next Phase of the NRC

In anticipation of the continued growth of the NRC and the conclusion of the initial 5-year NRC contract, AHRQ recently awarded a series of master task orders (PDF, 90 KB; PDF Help)  to support the next phase of the NRC for Health IT. A total of 32 contractors will support the diverse needs of the NRC across the following four domains:

• Domain 1 - Support for Health IT Program Management, Guidance, Assessment, and Planning.
• Domain 2 - Health IT Technical Assistance, Content Development, and Program-Related Projects and Studies.
• Domain 3 - Health IT Dissemination, Communication, and Marketing.
• Domain 4 - Health IT Portal Infrastructure Management and Web Site Design and Usability Support.

For Fiscal Year 2009, the AHRQ Health IT program awarded an initial set of 15 tasks that included:

• Developing requirements and plans for program management and governance of the new NRC.
• Synthesizing findings from the Program's $139 million in grants to small and rural health care organizations as well as $50 million to establish State and regional demonstrations of health information exchange.
• Establishing Federal resources for the Patient Centered Medical Home ($1.5 million)

With the next phase of the NRC for Health IT, AHRQ has established a powerful and flexible tool for supporting its mission and supporting broader governmental health IT initiatives.

For further information about the NRC, visit www.healthit.ahrq.gov, email NRC-HealthIT@ahrq.gov, or call 1-866-356-3467.

Last Modified: January 2013