PCORI Issues Request for Proposals to Create Coordinating Center That Will Play Key Role in Building a National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network

Washington, D.C. (June 5, 2013) – The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) today issued a request for proposals to establish a Coordinating Center that will support the development of a new national network to facilitate patient-centered comparative effectiveness research (CER). The deadline for proposals is Wednesday, July 31.

The Coordinating Center will provide technical and logistical support to the individual components of a new National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (NCRN) envisioned by PCORI. The goal of this initiative is to improve the nation’s capacity to conduct CER efficiently and to learn from the healthcare experiences of millions of Americans by creating a large national network of health data representative of patients across the country. The NCRN will promote broader participation of patients, clinicians, health systems, and payers in the research process and improvements in methods for conducting CER. PCORI committed $68 million in April to the development of the NCRN through the creation or expansion of up to eight health system-based Clinical Data Research Networks (CDRNs) and up to 18 Patient-Powered Research Networks (PPRNs) organized by groups of patients interested in participating in clinical research. The Coordinating Center will provide project management to the CDRN and PPRN awardees and support other components of the initiative. It will play a critical role in fostering communication and coordination among the awardees and disseminating best practices and it will support program evaluation. The full request for proposals with details on the scope of the work and evaluation criteria is available online.  The awardee is expected to be announced in September. Additional information on PCORI’s vision for the NCRN is available from the archives of a roundtable announcing this project and in a blog post from PCORI’s executive director Joe Selby, MD, MPH.

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The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is an independent, non-profit organization authorized by Congress in 2010. Its mission is to fund research that will provide patients, their caregivers and clinicians with the evidence-based information needed to make better-informed healthcare decisions. PCORI is committed to continuously seeking input from a broad range of stakeholders to guide its work.