Accelerating Change and Transformation in Organizations and Networks (ACTION) 4
What Is ACTION 4?
ACTION 4 research is conducted by 14 large partnerships that were selected competitively to collaborate with AHRQ via individual task order contracts. Together, the 14 ACTION 4 partnerships are composed of more than 300 member organizations that combine:
- Nationally recognized research and clinical expertise.
- Broad experience with quality improvement and implementation of evidence.
- Informed and engaged stakeholders.
- Access to sites in which to implement new delivery models.
- Highly motivated health professionals ever seeking new ways to provide the highest quality care to the patients they serve.
What Are the ACTION 4 Prime Organizations?
Each ACTION 4 partnership is led by a prime organization. The 14 ACTION 4 prime organizations are:
- Abt Associates.
- American Institutes for Research.
- Booz Allen Hamilton.
- IMPAQ.
- Johns Hopkins University.
- John Snow, Inc.
- Kaiser.
- MedStar.
- National Opinion Research Center, now known as NORC.
- Oregon Health & Science University.
- RAND Corp.
- RTI International.
- University of Colorado.
- Westat.
For more information about the partnerships, including all the member organizations associated with each partnership, go to ACTION 4 Partnership Profiles (PDF, 515 KB).
How Does ACTION 4 Support AHRQ's Mission?
AHRQ's mission is to produce evidence to make healthcare safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable, and to work with HHS and other partners to make sure that the evidence is understood and used. ACTION projects support the achievement of AHRQ’s mission through:
- A continued heavy focus on field-based, real-world informed development, testing, and implementation of new approaches to improving care safety and quality.
- Use of multidisciplinary teams to conduct research and quality improvement in diverse real-world care settings.
- Development of practical tools, guidance, and training to support effective implementation and sustainment of new approaches or interventions.
- Use of collaborations of engaged stakeholders from multiple sectors to support broad-based implementation and dissemination.
A particular objective of most ACTION 4 projects is to increase understanding not only of whether a particular care delivery intervention, model, or approach "works," but also how and why it does or does not work in a particular setting. ACTION 4 research is thus intended to be:
- Field based, to explore a broad mix of practical, applied topics that respond to diverse user needs and operational interests. By testing innovations directly in the settings in which they are intended to be used, ACTION 4 projects increase the likelihood of their eventual successful uptake.
- Implementation oriented, to examine the process of implementing innovations and the contextual factors influencing implementation success or failure.
- Potentially worthy of scale up and broad uptake and, in an effort to be applicable across multiple settings, designed around user needs and operational requirements and constraints.
In addition, this research strives to:
- Support whole person care across the full spectrum of care and the entire lifespan, including greater understanding of social determinants of health and stronger connections between community-based social services and health services providers, especially for those with multiple chronic conditions and socioeconomic disadvantages.
- Enable learning health systems (LHS) to use knowledge and data to support continuous improvement in clinical care and care delivery.
- Advance data-driven approaches for population health management and delivery of patient-centered care.
- Provide evidence to inform the transformation to a value-based healthcare system that pays for outcomes, rewards efficiency, focuses on disease prevention, and empowers consumers, providers, and purchasers through improved transparency around price and quality.
What Resources and Capacities Do ACTION 4 Partnerships Bring?
Each of the 14 ACTION 4 partnerships is led by a prime organization and is composed of diverse member organizations involved in healthcare delivery, including many or all of the following:
- Inpatient, ambulatory, and long-term care care providers.
- Integrated delivery systems and health plans.
- Health services research organizations.
- Consumer, patient safety, and other advocacy groups.
- Professional associations and trade organizations.
- Quality improvement organizations.
Each partnership brings large, robust healthcare databases, recognized clinical and research expertise, and the authority to implement healthcare innovations within diverse care settings. Collectively, the partnerships, which span all States, provide access and care to an estimated 50 percent of the U.S. population.
How Can You Help Shape the Delivery System Research Agenda?
ACTION 4 task orders are developed by AHRQ program staff under guidance from senior leadership. Task orders grow out of staff consideration of a broad range of factors, including but not limited to congressional directives; needs emerging from the broader policy and regulatory environments; findings and gaps reported in past and ongoing AHRQ research or in the peer-reviewed literature; and input from a wide variety of external sources.
