AHRQ Health Services Research Demonstration and Dissemination Grants (R18)

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is interested in receiving health services research grant applications to advance the science of primary care. We will use our standing R01, R18, and R03 mechanism to fund primary care focused health services research.

Revitalizing the Nation’s primary care system is critical to achieving AHRQ’s mission of improving the quality, safety, accessibility, equity and affordability of health care.

In this SEN AHRQ is interested in applications that will address salient questions related to primary care health services research. Robust primary care (including the elements of access, coordination, comprehensiveness, and continuity) is particularly important for patients with multiple chronic conditions (MCC), a burgeoning problem with an expanding older population, whose higher risks for severe disease compound the existing burdens of their underlying conditions. Similarly, primary care is critically important for socially disadvantaged populations for whom primary care delivery holds great promise in addressing health inequities. AHRQ is interested applications that develop, implement, and evaluate interventions and models of care, including those targeting the specific needs and challenges of disadvantaged populations and people living with MCC, that improve access, quality, and outcomes of care. Proposed studies may focus on the patient, clinician, practice, or system level interventions. Multilevel interventions are encouraged. Applicants are encouraged to partner with practices using innovative approaches to study design including co-production of the intervention design and evaluation, evidence generation from practice-based data, rapid cycle evaluation and adaptive designs. AHRQ also encourages projects that produce and disseminate timely insights that can be used to improve patient care and inform healthcare delivery.

Sample Primary Care research domains relevant to this notice include:

• Coordination of care across settings and providers, with attention to healthcare disparities, health inequities and patients with multiple chronic conditions.
• Patient-centered, whole-person healthcare delivery that address the needs of people with multiple chronic conditions and socially disadvantaged populations
• Strategies to foster community-based and public health partnerships interventions to improve health outcomes including population health and advance health equity.
• External supports, composition, and configurations of primary care teams and their affect on the effectiveness, efficiency and experience of care and health outcomes including the use of community health workers.
• The impact of financing models for primary care on the delivery of high-quality care.
• Primary care integration within larger health care systems and public health, and its impact on outcomes.
• Studies conducted by practice-based research networks (PBRN) including rapid cycle and pragmatic research to advance our understanding of primary care’s role in response to pandemics and other national health emergencies. AHRQ defines a PBRN as a group of ambulatory practices devoted principally to the primary care of patients, and affiliated in their mission to investigate questions related to primary care.
• Meaningful quality measures applicable to the primary care setting.
• Measurement of key aspects of primary care, such as “comprehensiveness” or “team performance”.

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