AHRQ Announces New Healthcare System Challenge Competition

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) announced today a new challenge competition to explore the feasibility and resources and infrastructure needed to integrate real-world healthcare system data into AHRQ’s systematic review findings to improve healthcare practice. The top award winner could earn up to $200,000.

This challenge aims to incorporate unpublished healthcare system data into AHRQ’s systematic review findings to better inform local healthcare decisions. This additional information may be particularly valuable when results from systematic reviews are limited by the number of research studies, or only include studies with narrow patient populations.

“Ideally, these data will enable the healthcare system to make better decisions about which practices to adopt in their system and how to overcome barriers to improve clinical practice and healthcare operations,” said AHRQ Director Robert Otto Valdez, Ph.D., M.H.S.A. “This work is part of AHRQ’s mission to optimize patient outcomes in all populations and improve the quality and equity of healthcare practice nationwide.”

This challenge competition builds on previous competitions that AHRQ has held to inspire innovative thinking and novel methods for improving healthcare in the United States. These challenge competitions have sought to foster solutions to specific issues, such as creating an app to track patient-reported outcomes, developing a tool to better interpret community health needs based on social determinants of health, and improving postpartum mental health care for rural families.

AHRQ’s latest challenge competition includes two phases. The first phase seeks proposals to supplement identified AHRQ systematic reviews with healthcare system data to address relevant problems in the applicant’s healthcare system. The second phase requests an analysis of healthcare system data alongside systematic review findings to address those problems. These analyses must also include a related detailed report of resources required. Phase one submissions are due to Challenge.gov on January 9, 2023.

“Healthcare systems may consider augmenting systematic review findings by addressing an identified evidence gap or examining the applicability of review findings to real-world health system populations,” noted Craig Umscheid, M.D., M.S., Director of the Evidence-based Practice Center Division and Senior Science Advisor at AHRQ. “These proposals will help us understand if and how data outside of existing systematic reviews, particularly from healthcare systems themselves, can be used alongside our systematic reviews to improve decision making, healthcare delivery, and potentially patient outcomes.”

The top five entries in phase one will be invited to participate in phase two. After phase two, each of the top five entries will receive cash awards of $50,000. Additionally, the phase two first-place winner will be awarded an extra $150,000, and the second-place winner will be awarded an additional $100,000.

For details on AHRQ’s Challenge to Integrate Healthcare System Data with Systematic Review Findings, view the Federal Register Notice and visit AHRQ’s Challenge Competitions webpage.

Contact:

AHRQ Office of Communications 
Rachel.Weinstein@ahrq.hhs.gov
301-427-1858

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