WASHINGTON, DC — The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Board of Governors today approved $2.3 million to fund two projects designed to advance the spread and use of PCORI-funded research findings in real-world practice. Both awards were made through PCORI’s Dissemination and Implementation initiative.
The first award is for a $1.4 million University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center project seeking to expand use of a decision aid shown in PCORI-funded research to help patients at high risk for lung cancer make better-informed decisions about being screened for the disease. The project will train staff at smoking “quitlines” in eight states to identify and refer high-risk smokers to use the decision aid—“Lung Cancer Screening: Is It Right for Me?”—and other resources that can encourage and prepare them to discuss screening with a healthcare provider. The goal is to help increase lung cancer screening rates, which are low nationwide.
The second award is for an $860,000 Cincinnati Children’s Hospital project designed to improve care for adolescents with behavior problems following traumatic brain injury (TBI). The project seeks to increase access to a special type of TBI therapy called family problem-solving therapy (F-PST). Previous PCORI-funded research showed that receiving a less resource-intensive form of F-PST through a self-guided online program was as effective as therapist-guided online F-PST and in-person therapy in a clinic.
The newly approved project will implement all three approaches at 10 children’s hospitals and rehabilitation centers in seven states. The hope is that the self-guided online option will expand families’ access to needed post-TBI care; more than half of adolescents with behavior problems following TBI don’t receive treatment and few therapists are trained in F-PST for TBI.
“PCORI’s mission is not just to fund research that will help patients and clinicians make better-informed choices about their healthcare options, but to actively promote the dissemination and implementation of the results of those studies,” said PCORI Executive Director Joe Selby, MD, MPH. “These latest awards will help to do that, supporting efforts to see that useful evidence is more quickly available in the real world.”
“Even the strongest evidence can’t improve patient care and outcomes if not taken up in routine practice,” added Jean R. Slutsky, PA, MSPH, PCORI’s chief engagement and dissemination officer. “As we continue to see more promising results from PCORI-funded studies, we are building on our dissemination and implementation work to ensure this evidence gets to healthcare decision makers in ways they can most easily and effectively use it.”
With these latest awards, PCORI has approved nearly $31 million in projects designed to support the uptake of selected results from PCORI-funded research to help patients and those who care for them make better-informed healthcare decisions. More details on all of PCORI’s dissemination and implementation projects are on PCORI’s website.
The Board also heard an overview of PCORI’s portfolio of research to improve care for people with multiple sclerosis (MS), which affects as many as 1 million Americans, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. PCORI has awarded $69 million to support 12 studies and related projects seeking to determine which care approaches work best in treating MS symptoms. These studies span the range from comparing medications and other therapies used to slow the progression of MS, to assessing therapies designed to treat symptoms, and comparing the effectiveness of rehabilitation delivered through telehealth to conventional direct care. More information on those projects is available on PCORI’s website.
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About PCORI
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is an independent nonprofit organization authorized by Congress in 2010. Its mission is to fund research that will provide patients, their caregivers and clinicians with the evidence-based information they need to make better-informed healthcare decisions. PCORI is committed to continuously seeking input from a broad range of stakeholders to guide its work.