Limited Competitive Continuation for Ahrq Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics Program

The summary for the Limited Competitive Continuation for Ahrq Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics Program grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the National Institutes of Health, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Limited Competitive Continuation for Ahrq Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics Program: The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) announces the availability of limited competitive continuation funds for awards to existing Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERTs) whose initial funding commenced in 2000. The purpose of these awards is to allow these grantees to build on their current work in progress and to expand the work to: (a) develop and implement educational strategies focused on translating the most promising findings of current work into everyday practice; (b) address existing gaps within the overall CERTs program including pharmacoeconomics, cost effectiveness analyses, and education; (c) enhance the work of the CERTs, consistent with the AHRQ patient safety agenda; and (d) develop additional projects within each center's overarching center theme that was previously determined to be complementary to AHRQ research priorities and responsive to the needs and goals of programs of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), as discussed below. This program began with the release of RFA: HS-99-004 on January 27, 1999, and the subsequent award of grants pursuant to the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997 which authorized the AHCPR (now AHRQ), in coordination with FDA, to carry out a demonstration program to conduct research and provide objective information on drugs, biologics, and devices. AHRQ continues to manage this program under the Agency's reauthorizing legislation, P.L. 106-129, enacted in December 1999. The program's legislative mandate is to "conduct state-of-the-art research to increase awareness of: (1) new uses of drugs, biological products, and devices; (2) ways to improve the effective use of drugs, biological products, and devices; and (3) risks of new uses and risks of combinations of drugs and biological products." Further, the legislation directs "CERTs to provide objective clinical information to the following individuals and entities: (1) health care practitioners and other providers of health care goods or services; (2) pharmacists, pharmacy benefit managers and purchasers; (3) health maintenance organizations and other managed health care organizations; (4) health care insurers and governmental agencies; and (5) patients and consumers." Additionally the centers are to "investigate various ways to improve the quality of health care while reducing the cost of health care through an increase in the appropriate use of drugs, biological products, and devices and the prevention of adverse effects of drugs, biological products, and devices and the consequences of such effects, such as unnecessary hospitalizations." Finally, the CERTs will "conduct research on the comparative effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and safety of drugs, biological products, and devices." CERTs is an ongoing multi-year program that supports research demonstration centers. The CERTs program is mandated by Congress. Because the existing CERTs recipients possess the infrastructure, leadership, organization, and multidisciplinary research objectives to enable them to build on the existing work to address existing gaps and to develop additional projects, and because continuity in the research is necessary, this will be a limited competition. In addition, ongoing evaluation of the CERTs demonstration activities require that a longer period of funding be in place for the current awardees in order to determine the appropriate structure for the permanent Agency program. Detailed information on the program can be obtained at http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/certsovr.htm.