AHCPR Announces 12 Evidence-based PracticeCenters

Press Release Date: June 25, 1997

HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala today announced the start of anew program designed to help clinicians, providers, and healthplans improve the quality of health care by giving themstate-of-the-art scientific information on common, costly medicalconditions and new health care technologies.

Under its Evidence-based Practice Program, HHS' Agency forHealth Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) is awarding 12 five-yearcontracts to institutions in the United States and Canada toserve as Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs). The EPCs willreview all the relevant scientific literature on medical topicsassigned to them by AHCPR, and conduct additional analyses whenappropriate.

Their findings will be produced as "evidencereports" or technology assessments, which AHCPR willdisseminate widely through its site on the World Wide Web and asprinted documents. The evidence reports will serve as thescientific foundation for public- and private-sectororganizations to develop tools and strategies for improving thequality of health care services they provide and pay for.Technology assessments produced by the EPCs will give healthplans and payers information they need to make informed decisionsabout covering new and changing medical devices and procedures.

"AHCPR's Evidence-based Practice Program, which includesthe EPCs and the recently announced National GuidelineClearinghouse, will help clinicians, health plans and otherproviders make critical health care decisions using the bestscientific knowledge available," said Secretary Shalala."Our goal is to use the Internet and every other means ofdissemination to ensure that this information is used to providehigh quality health care services and achieve the best value forthe money this nation spends on health care."

The EPCs will tackle specific topics within broad areas suchas adult health, child and adolescent health, maternal health,geriatrics, rehabilitation, dental health, mental health andsubstance abuse, alternative care, and preventive care. The firstset of topics, nominated by public- and private-sectororganizations in response to a solicitation published by AHCPR inNovember 1996, will be announced this summer.

"The reports produced by the EPCs will have a significantimpact on the quality of health care services by providingmuch-needed critical evaluations of the available scientificliterature regarding clinical interventions andtechnologies," said John M. Eisenberg, M.D., AHCPRadministrator. "This information will be invaluable not onlyto individual clinicians, health plans, providers and purchasers,but also to the health care system as a whole by providingimportant information to help reduce the unnecessary variationsin medical practice."

To bring the broadest range of experts into the development ofevidence reports and health technology assessment, the EPCs areencouraged to form partnerships and enter into collaborationswith other medical and research organizations.

"AHCPR's Evidence-based Practice Centers will bringtogether the best of health services research to improve clinicalpractice and medical decisionmaking," said Douglas Kamerow,M.D., director of AHCPR's Office of the Forum for Quality andEffectiveness in Health Care. "The EPCs will work withpartner organizations to ensure that the evidence reports andtechnology assessments they produce will become building blocksfor health care quality improvement projects throughout thenation."

-AHCPR'S Evidence-based Practice Centers-

The following is a list of the AHCPR Evidence-based PracticeCenters and the organizations with which they will collaborate:

1.Blue Cross/Blue Shield Technical Evaluation Center, ChicagoIll.

Collaborators include: Kaiser Permanente and, through membersof the TEC Medical Advisory Panel, American College ofPhysicians; University of Washington, Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology; Wisconsin School of Medicine; University ofPittsburgh; and Johns Hopkins University.

2.Duke University, Durham, N.C.

hotel rooms KortrijkSub-contractor Health Economics Research, Inc, Waltham, Mass.

3.ECRI, Plymouth Meeting, Pa.

Collaborators include Leonard Davis Institute and PhiladelphiaSchool of Pharmacy and Science.

4.Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

Collaborators include University of Maryland and the BaltimoreCochrane Center.

5.McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Collaborators include Canadian Cochrane Center and St. JosephHospital.

6.MetaWorks, Inc., Boston, Mass.

Collaborators include Leonard Davis Institute andPhiladelphia VA Medical Center.

7.New England Medical Center, Boston, Mass.

Collaborators include the San Francisco Cochrane Center, BlueCross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts; and the Tufts Managed CareInstitute.

8.Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, Ore.

Collaborators include Northwest Kaiser Permanente andNorthwest VA Medical Center.

ERROR MSG9.RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif.

Collaborators include the University of California, LosAngeles; University of California, San Diego; University ofSouthern California; Cedars Sinai; Value Health Sciences; and VAMedical Centers.

10.Research Triangle Institute and University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill, N.C.

Collaborators include: Morehouse Medical TreatmentEffectiveness Center, Morehouse School of Medicine; Urban HealthInstitute, Harlem Hospital Center; and the Harvard School ofPublic Health, Center for Quality of Care Research and Education.

11.University of California, San Francisco and StanfordUniversity, San Francisco, Calif. and Stanford, Calif.

Collaborators include the San Francisco Cochrane Center;Kaiser Permanente; and VA Medical Centers in San Francisco, PaloAlto, and Menlo Park.

Gran hotel Limerick12.University of Texas, San Antonio, Texas

Collaborators include the San Antonio and San FranciscoCochrane Centers and American College of Physicians.