42 Health Systems Picked for PCORI Plan to Move Clinical Research to Practice

Forty-two health systems across the United States have been selected to participate in a $50 million initiative by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) that seeks to accelerate the implementation of practice-changing comparative clinical effectiveness research results to tangible patient care.

The initiative, the Health Systems Implementation Initiative (HSII), was announced a year ago, and PCORI invited health systems to apply with the idea that if selected for the 5-year program, they would be supported through a capacity-building project phase and an implementation-building project phase.

The capacity-building phase is designed to support projects of up to $500,000, and the implementation phase will back projects with budgets of up to $5 million. The capacity-building awards will be announced this summer.

In a statement, the organization cited “its unique approach of supporting health systems directly in dissemination and implementation expands the organization’s work in this area and demonstrates its leadership in efforts to cut the estimated 17-year lag between the publication of results and their uptake in practice.”

Among the participants are the Cleveland Clinic, Duke University Health System, Geisinger Clinic, Harris Health System, Intermountain Health System, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, MedStar Health, Northwell Health, UPMC, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Overall, the participant list covers nearly 25% of the US population in 41 states and the District of Columbia.

During a press call to announce the participants, one spoke about the impact the project is expected to have on closing health equity gaps.

“When we look in our community and across the country, we see profound variation in morbidity and mortality along racial, ethnic and geographic fault lines. These differences are avoidable and these differences are unjust,” said Chethan Bachireddy, MD, MPH, the chief health officer for Harris Health System in Texas.

“We know there's a harmful gap between the evidence and practice—17 years is too long,” added Bachireddy, who was previously the head of Virginia’s Medicaid program. “There's a gap between what we know and what we do. And that gap is further exacerbated among marginalized populations.”

In a statement, PCORI's executive director said clinical effectiveness research is only useful if it makes its way into the hands of those who need it.

“Comparative clinical effectiveness research produces actionable information that helps people make informed health care choices and improve their outcomes, but even the best evidence only works if clinicians and health systems are aware of it and can use it,” said Nakela L. Cook, MD, MPH.

“Leveraging health systems’ on-the-ground knowledge and experience in care delivery will enhance PCORI’s efforts to implement practice-changing findings in clinical care and accelerate sustainable and scalable efforts to support lasting changes.”