About Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs)

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) created the Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs) in 1997 to conduct research reviews for the Effective Health Care (EHC) Program. In August 2012, 5 year contracts were awarded to 11 EPCs.

The EPCs are housed at some of the nation’s top universities, medical centers, or research institutions. The EPCs produce comparative effectiveness reviews or effectiveness reviews on medications, devices, and other health care services for the EHC Program with the goal of helping patients, physicians, and policymakers make better decisions about treatments.

Each EPC is each made up of medical researchers from a broad range of clinical health and scientific backgrounds. The people who conduct research at EPCs are medical doctors, pharmacy doctors, psychologists, physical therapists, and other medical specialists. In addition, they are also trained in different types of health research such as behavioral epidemiologists, health services research, and organizational change research.

EPC reports are a large effort, with assistance and input from an editorial and peer review process that ensures accuracy, quality, consistency, and credibility of their scientific evidence reports. To learn more about the editorial review process and the associate editors involved, please visit the About the EPC Editorial Review Process page. We acknowledge and thank the team of associate editors and peer reviewers who contributed to EPC reports in 2011 (Letter of Appreciation; PDF, 113 kB).

To visit the Web sites of each EPC, simply click on the links below.
 

• Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Technology Evaluation Center (TEC) , Chicago, IL - Naomi Aronson, Ph.D.
• Brown University, Center for Evidence-based Medicine, Providence, RI – Thomas Trikalinos, M.D., Ph.D.
• ECRI Institute , Plymouth Meeting, PA - Karen Schoelles, M.D., S.M.
• Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, MD - Eric B. Bass, M.D., M.P.H.
• Kaiser Permanente Research Affiliates, Portland, OR - Evelyn Whitlock, M.D., M.P.H.
• Pacific Northwest Evidence-based Practice Center - Oregon Health & Science University  , Portland, OR - Roger Chou, M.D.
• RTI International--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill, NC - Meera Viswanathan, Ph.D.
• Southern California Evidence-based Practice Center--RAND , Santa Monica, CA - Paul Shekelle, M.D., Ph.D.
• University of Alberta, Edmonton , Alberta, Canada - Lisa Hartling, BScPT., M.Sc., Ph.D. 
• Minnesota Evidence-based Practice Center , Minneapolis, MN - Robert L. Kane, M.D. and Timothy J. Wilt, M.D., M.P.H.
• Vanderbilt University Medical Center , Nashville, TN - Melissa McPheeters, Ph.D., M.P.H