PCORI funding announcements expected in May

The long-awaited initial funding announcements from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute are expected next month, according to an April 18 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, authored by PCORI's leaders.

Dr. Joe Selby, PCORI's executive director, Dr. Anne Beal, the organization's chief operating officer, and Lori Frank, a PCORI scientist, co-authored the article, which appeared in a comparative effectiveness-themed issue of JAMA. In it, they outlined PCORI's previously released national priorities and research agenda, and they also emphasized the need for greater patient and clinician involvement in the research process.

“New evidence is unlikely to be rapidly adopted unless the systems in which patients and clinicians make decisions are improved, removing barriers to acting on the new information,” the authors wrote. “Better communication methods for making CER results available and for communication about those results between patients and their clinicians are needed.”

The projects chosen for the first round of funding will cover a wide range of clinical interventions and conditions, and will engage a number of different stakeholders, PCORI said.

“At the same time, PCORI will begin convening multi-stakeholder conferences, workshops and advisory panels to consider whether specific research areas within each priority may be particularly aligned with PCORI criteria and deserving of more targeted PCORI funding,” the authors added.