AHRQ Names New Director of Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement

Arlene S. Bierman, M.D., M.S., has been named director of AHRQ’s Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement. Dr. Bierman is a general internist, geriatrician and health services researcher whose work has focused on improving access, quality and outcomes of health care for older adults with chronic illness in disadvantaged populations. Dr. Bierman has also developed strategies for using performance measurement as a tool for knowledge translation, as well as conducted research to increase policymakers’ uptake of evidence. A tenured professor with academic appointments at the University of Toronto, she was the inaugural holder of the Ontario Women's Health Council Chair in Women's Health and a senior scientist in the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at St. Michael's Hospital. She was also principal investigator for the Project for an Ontario Women’s Health Evidence-Based Report Card (POWER) study, which provided actionable data to help policymakers and health care providers improve health and reduce health inequities in Ontario. In her new role at AHRQ, Dr. Bierman leads a center that consists of five divisions: the Evidence-Based Practice Center Program; the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Program; the Division of Decision Science and Patient Engagement; the Division of Health Information Technology and the Division of Practice Improvement. The Center also includes the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research.

Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement (CEPI)

Generates new knowledge, synthesizes evidence, translates science on what works in health and health care delivery, and catalyzes practice improvement across health care settings.

Specifically, the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement (CEPI)*conducts and supports research and evidence synthesis on health care delivery and improvement; advances decision and communication sciences to facilitate informed treatment and health care decisionmaking by patients and their health care providers; explores how health information technology can improve clinical decisionmaking and health care quality; catalyzes and promotes sustainability of improvements in clinical practice across health care settings through research, demonstration projects, and partnership development; and operates the National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research.

CEPI consists of five divisions:

Evidence-Based Practice Center Program: Produces evidence syntheses by conducting systematic evidence reviews using robust and rigorous methodologies and advances the methods of evidence synthesis to ensure scientific rigor and unbiased reviews.
U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Program: Provides scientific, administrative, and dissemination support for the independent U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, enabling the Task Force to make evidence-based recommendations on clinical preventive services.
Division of Decision Science and Patient Engagement: Supports informed decisionmaking by translating evidence-based findings into tools and products that communicate what works in health care. Collaborates with stakeholders to promote evidence-based decisionmaking. Advances research into methods and products that summarize evidence and engage patients, health care professionals, policymakers, and communities in improving health care and clinical decisionmaking.
Division of Health Information Technology: Develops and disseminates evidence to inform policy and practice on how health information technology can improve the quality of health care.
Division of Practice Improvement: Advances the science of clinical practice improvement; evaluates and supports innovative models of practice transformation in diverse settings; facilitates communities of learning to promote the implementation of evidence for practice improvement; and serves as a trusted source of evidence and tools for methods, measures, and evaluation of practice improvement.

CEPI is also home to AHRQ’s National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR).

AHRQ believes that revitalizing the Nation’s primary care system is foundational to achieving AHRQ’s mission of improving the quality, safety, accessibility, equity, and affordability of health care. The Agency’s authorizing legislation requires AHRQ to advance the field of primary care research and to establish a Center for this work.

The NCEPCR is the intellectual home for primary care and primary care researchers across AHRQ. As the locus for the wide array of primary care-related activities within the Agency, the Center provides opportunities for AHRQ scientists to share concepts, ideas, challenges, and emerging solutions. The NCEPCR also is AHRQ’s main point of contact with the primary care community, communicating the evidence AHRQ produces —and how this evidence can be used to improve health and primary health care—to researchers, primary care professionals, health care decisionmakers, and patients and families.

*CEPI consolidates and represents a realignment of the functions of two former AHRQ research centers: the Center for Outcomes and Evidence (COE) and the Center for Primary Care, Prevention, and Clinical Partnerships (CP3).

Page last reviewed July 2014

Internet Citation: Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement (CEPI). July 2014. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/cpi/centers/cepi/index.html