PCORI Awards More Than $200M for Innovative Projects

The awards target several pain points in healthcare, including chronic care management, senior care, and care for children with complex conditions.

The Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute is shelling out more than $200 million for innovative projects that address some of healthcare's most common pain points.

PCORI has announced $208 million in funding awards for 17 clinical effectiveness research (CER) studies, as well as a separate, $2 million award for a project that aims to improve access to mental healthcare services for people undergoing dialysis.

The awards are part of a continuing program to apply new technologies and strategies to many of healthcare's common problems, such as chronic care management, palliative care, senior services and care for people living with rare diseases.

“These awards present significant opportunities to address urgent health challenges and empower patients and their families with actionable information about their health care choices,” PCORI Executive Director Nakela L. Cook, MD, MPH, said in a press release. “Facing a complex healthcare system and many care options, patients, caregivers, clinicians, and other health decision makers need reliable information to help them understand which care options will best meet individual patient needs and circumstances. PCORI-supported evidence will improve healthcare and outcomes for people across the nation.”

Included in the list of projects are three that use telehealth to improve care management for people living with multiple chronic conditions in primary care settings, with a focus specifically on COPD and sleep apnea, obesity and asthma in children, and care for medically fragile children.

Four large studies receiving PCORI funds will compare:

• The treatment of coronary artery disease with either open-heart surgery or less invasive stent placement, with a focus on women and underserved populations.
• Palliative care delivery for seriously Ill hospitalized patients by specialists against the same care delivered by trained general care practitioners.
• Various medications as second-line treatment for the 25 percent of children with a severe form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis who do not get better taking a first-line biologic drug.
• The impacts of annual wellness visits for older adults with complex healthcare needs against a program that adds integrated care involving interprofessional teams and at-home visits.

The $2 million award targets a project that will compare two treatments proven effective in a previous PCORI-funded project, medication and a cognitive behavioral therapy program delivered via telehealth, in dozens of dialysis units across several states.

“PCORI’s stewardship of patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research extends to ensuring useful findings can have a salutary impact in everyday clinical care, which is why we fund projects that encourage uptake of results,” Harv Feldman, MD, MSCE, PCORI’s deputy executive director for patient-centered research programs, said in the press release. “As a result of PCORI’s latest implementation funding awards, clinicians and patients confronting decisions about mental health while undergoing dialysis may experience better care and outcomes.”