AHRQ and eGEMs Seek Submissions for New Special Issue | Academy Health

AHRQ and eGEMs Seek Submissions for New Special Issue | Academy Health

Call for Papers Closes October 31, 2018

AcademyHealth’s peer-reviewed, open access journal eGEMs has opened a new call for papers seeking submissions for an upcoming special issue sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The special issue seeks to help AHRQ achieve new data insights and capabilities and prepare for the future given the rapid changes in how researchers, clinicians, patients, policymakers, and others are using data to transform health care.  

For this special issue, AHRQ is interested in both traditional general hypothesis testing, as well as more innovative predictive analytics research and case studies that showcase frontline innovations within health systems. Data sources may include those from EHRs, claims, social factors and other datasets that are useful in advancing health and health care.  

Papers submitted for this special issue should focus on: 

• Novel data-driven approaches to address the nation’s health care issues, such as 
  • Effective approaches to transforming our healthcare system to a value-based system of care in terms of cost and quality
  • Methods for better understanding how changes in policy affect the evolution of health insurance markets, the health insurance landscape, costs and access to health care
  • Effective health care policy changes to best combat the opioid crisis 
  • Efficient policy approaches to bringing down the high cost of prescription drugs 
• Synthesis of data or methods that can be used to enhance the value of existing administrative and survey data infrastructure including:
  • Influence of social and other contextual factors on health care processes and outcomes
  • State and local health laws and policies
  • Specialty clinician licensure and practice guidelines
  • Predictive analytic building blocks to provide insight into such areas as: small-area variation, the clustering of community and/or policy factors, the composition of the healthcare system including physician networks, health care settings, and health insurance markets, and the impact of alternative payment methods on the use and cost of care.
• Operational research that would help stakeholders in health systems improve services and better use the data in their systems
• Integration of internal data generated from routine care operations with external evidence in support of learning health system activities 
• Emerging methodologies and potential pitfalls that researchers need to be aware of
• Practical insights for how to overcome related challenges—both old and new

As suggested above, eGEMs and AHRQ are particularly interested in submissions that include consideration of the public policy implications of working with health data and any insights that can inform policymaker decisions while helping to identify gaps in knowledge that future research might address. Also welcome would be submissions that demonstrate applications of the rich administrative and survey data infrastructure related to health services research integrated with national, state, and local-level economic and epidemiologic contextual data.

All submissions falling under this call for papers will undergo eGEMs' rigorous double-blind peer review and editorial process before publication, and—once published—will be shared with and promoted to a broad audience that includes government officials, payers, industry, care delivery systems, patients and consumers, policymakers, and researchers.

The call for papers closes on October 31, 2018.  Submit your manuscript today at www.egems.org or contact us at egems@academyhealth.org with any questions.