Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Medical Errors & Patient Safety Update--AHRQ Publishes Funding Announcements in Patient Safety-Relat

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Medical Errors & Patient Safety Update--AHRQ Publishes Funding Announcements in Patient Safety-Related Areas

AHRQ Publishes Funding Announcements in Patient Safety-Related Areas
AHRQ announces the following new funding announcements and notices related to patient safety:
· Funding Opportunity Announcements
o Prevention and Management of Healthcare Associated Infections (R18): The purpose of this funding opportunity is to fund extramural health services research, demonstration, dissemination, and evaluation grants that propose to prevent and more effectively manage health care associated infections. This funding opportunity sets a multi-year research framework, based on the distillation of existing, peer-reviewed research, case studies, the Department of Health and Human Services’ 2009 National Action Plan on Healthcare-associated Infections, and qualitative information resulting from a series of listening sessions that occurred in selected cities across the United States in 2009. Application Due Date: March 29, 2010.
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-10-089.html

o Improving Patient Safety through Simulation Research (R18): AHRQ announces the availability of grants to develop, test, and evaluate the impact of various simulation approaches for the purpose of improving the safe delivery of health care. The projects funded under this funding opportunity announcement will inform providers, health educators, payers, policy makers, patients, the public, and AHRQ about the effective use of simulation in improving patient safety. Application Due Date: March 26, 2010.
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-HS-10-018.html


· Special Emphasis Notice
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-HS-10-009.html
AHRQ has recently issued a Special Emphasis Notice focused on career development grant opportunities for individuals who are focused on reducing and eliminating health care-associated infections (HAIs) within ambulatory health care settings. This includes acute care areas within hospitals, same-day surgery centers, dialysis centers, outpatient care clinics, and long-term care facilities such as nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities. Research priorities related to this notice are the:

o the development, implementation, and demonstration of strategies and interventions that prevent and manage HAIs, along with the determination of the costs of such interventions;
o determination of the efficacy and effectiveness of preventative interventions; and
o population-level studies on the patient risk factors, sources, and disease genotypes of antibiotic-resistant organisms that can result in HAIs.


· Individual Career Development Awards
AHRQ recently expanded its career development opportunities to include support for mentored research scientists. This opportunity will run parallel with our ongoing mentored clinical scientist program. We are also continuing our independent scientist development program, which is open to students pursuing either clinical or research doctorates.
o Mentored Research Scientists
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-08-022.html

o Mentored Clinical Scientists
http://www.ahrq.gov/fund/training/rsrchtng.htm#MCSDA

o Independent Scientist Awards
http://www.ahrq.gov/fund/training/rsrchtng.htm#ISA