Grants awarded
May 2012
GHRI recently received word of six new awards.
California Academy for the Public's Health: A one-year, $10,000 grant from The California Endowment. Major Goals: To transform the field of public heath; to train public health leaders throughout California for organizational and systems change that imbeds equity, community, and cross-sector collaboration into practice. The principal investigator is William L. Beery.
Disparities in Chronic Illness Care for Patients with Language Barriers: A four-year, $1.3 million R01 grant from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Major Goals: (1) To evaluate how medication adherence and treatment intensification differ by limited English proficiency (LEP) status in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM), hypertension (HTN), and hyperlipidemia (HL); (2) to characterize differences between patients by LEP status in patient, provider, and health system factors associated with medication adherence and treatment intensification, and to investigate the extent to which these factors explain differences identified in Aim 1 between LEP and non-LEP patients; and (3) to identify modifiable patient, provider, and health system factors associated with medication adherence and treatment intensification in LEP populations. The project will be conducted by a diverse group of junior and experienced senior investigators with complementary backgrounds from institutions across the United States including Group Health Research Institute (GHRI), the University of Washington, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The principal investigator is Leo S. Morales.
Health Impact Assessment: A two-year, $33,527 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Major Goals: To conduct site visits and produce in-depth case studies of 26 Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) around the United States, thus enhancing the validity of the evaluation among experts in the field of HIA; to present the evaluation’s progress and participate in annual HIA conferences sponsored by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The principal investigator is Allen Cheadle.
Technical Assistance to Support the Learning and Diffusion Activities at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI): A three-month, $90,358 grant from CMMI. Major Goals: To design, develop, and present webinars on the Patient-Centered Medical Home Change Concepts and related topics as well as assist with planning the technical assistance structure and offerings that the American Institutes for Research (AIR) will provide to assist CMS and CMMI in their national Advanced Primary Care Practice (APCP) Demonstration. The principal investigator is Edward H. Wagner.
Updating of the Validation of Nonunion and Malunion Codes & Estimating the Incidence of Nonunions: A six-month, $64,778 grant from AMGEN. Major goals: To update/improve our work validating nonunion and malunions of fractures as well as estimating the incidence of nonunions at Group Health Cooperative and Kaiser Permanente Colorado. The principal investigator is Denise M. Boudreau.
VA Contract for Katharine Bradley- Mentoring and Consulting: A four-year, $119,118 grant from Veteran's Administration. Major Goals: To consult with VA quality improvement research related to alcohol misuse, including mentoring UW Department of Health Services PhD students and junior faculty who are conducting research on alcohol misuse in the VA. The principal investigator is Katharine A. Bradley.
April 2012
GHRI recently received word of ten new awards.
Anticholinergic Medication Use and Risk for Cognitive Decline, Neuropathology, and Physical Performance: A two-year, $671,693 grant from the National Institute on Aging. Major goals: The overarching goal of this project is to examine whether use of medications with anticholinergic effects is associated with clinical and neuropathological Alzheimer's disease, rates of cognitive decline, and rates of decline in physical performance measures (e.g., walking speed.) The principal investigator is Eric B. Larson.
Comparison of Antipsychotic Medications: A seven-month, $164,993 grant from Bristol Myers Squibb. Major Goals: Compare the drug Abilify to other antipsychotic medications on the market. The principal investigator is Robert Penfold.
Efforts to Develop the Sentinel Initiative—Drug Use Studies—Comparison to National Projected Databases: A four-month, $1,695 grant from Food and Drug Administration. Major goals: The study design is a retrospective inception cohort. All patients enrolled in drug and medical coverage who have greater than or equal to one prescription for entacapone, a dopamine agonistor MAO-B inhibitor will serve as the base population from which study cohorts will be selected. The GHRI lead investigator is Denise M. Boudreau.
Efforts to Develop the Sentinel Initiative—Risk of Acute Myocardial Infarction in Patients with Parkinson's Disease Treated with Entacapone of Dopamine Agonists-MAO-B Inhibitors (Stalevo): A four-month, $3,112 grant from Food and Drug Administration. Major goals: To be conducted with distributed programs that will execute against the Mini-Sentinel Distributed Dataset. To implement the distributed SAS programs, review results, and help troubleshoot site-specific problems that may arise. The GHRI lead investigator is Denise M. Boudreau.
Exploring the Impact of Pediatric Behavioral-Health Screening on Health Care Use: A two-year, $158,725 grant from National Institutes of Health. Major goals: To explore the relationship between the implementation of behavioral health (BH) screening in pediatric settings and the quantity and quality of BH and non-BH care use. The GHRI lead investigator is Robert Penfold.
Health Impact Assessment Monograph: A ten-month, $3,000 grant from Healthcare Georgia Foundation. Major Goals: To prepare a Health Impact Assessment monograph designed for nonprofit health organizations that includes definition, rationale, standards, implementation steps, and examples to be used by organizations having policy and advocacy responsibilities. The principal investigator is Emily Bourcier.
Linking Primary Care and Resources in the Community to Improve Health—Development of Measures: A two-year, $14,935 grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Major goals: Provide review and input on five tasks and participate as expert panel member; create a Clinical-Community Linkages Measures Atlas; Develop an initial list of candidate measures; create an evaluation roadmap; disseminate the Clinical-Community Linkages Measures Atlas and evaluation roadmap; and create a final report. The principal investigator is Allen Cheadle.
Novel Methods of Measuring Health Disparities: A three-month, $25,266 grant from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Major Goals: To develop a sample frame for a population-based study of health disparities. The GHRI lead investigator is Leo S. Morales.
The Primary Care Team—Learning from Effective Practices: A three-year, $3,287,255 grant from Robert Wood Johnson. Major Goals: To identify and carefully study high functioning primary care practices with interesting team models and use of staff. What we learn from these sites will be used to construct a technical assistance package/toolkit that can then be tested during phase II of this work in primary care sites involved in practice transformation. The principal investigator is Edward H. Wagner.
Virginia Mason Community-Health Needs Assessment: A three-month, $20,601 grant from Virginia Mason Medical Center. Major Goals: The principal investigator is William L. Beery.
March 2012
GHRI recently received word of two new awards.
Health Impact Assessment Monograph: A ten-month, $3,000 grant from Healthcare Georgia Foundation. Major Goals: To prepare a health impact assessment monograph designed for nonprofit health organizations, which includes definition, rationale, standards, implementation steps, and examples to be used by organizations with policy and advocacy responsibilities. The principal investigator is Emily Bourcier.
Novel Methods of Measuring Health Disparities: A three-month, $25,266 grant from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Major Goals: To develop a sample frame for a population-based study of health disparities. The GHRI lead investigator is Leo S. Morales.
February 2012
GHRI recently received word of 13 new awards.
Efforts to Develop the Sentinel Initiative—Acute Myocardial Infarction Surveillance (AMI): A three-year, $126,333 grant from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to implement a protocol developed as part of the FDA Mini-Sentinel initiative for the active surveillance of acute myocardial infarction in users of saxagliptin compared to users of comparator agents, based on prospective data obtained from large, population-based clinical and claims databases. The surveillance project will be conducted across numerous Mini-Sentinel data partners. The GHRI lead investigator is Denise M. Boudreau.
Efforts to Develop the Sentinel Initiative--Core Leader Effort: A one-year, $59,189 grant from the FDA to provide administrative and methodological leadership within the Mini-Sentinel as a Methods Core co-lead. The GHRI lead investigator is Denise M. Boudreau.
Efforts to Develop the Sentinel Initiative: Detection and Analysis of Adverse Events Related to Regulated Products in Automated Health Care Data (Clinical Data Expansion Workgroup—Add Seven Labs): A one-year, $54,450 grant from Food and Drug Administration for continuation of the Clinical Data Workgroup; to expand the Mini-Sentinel Common Data Model data dictionary and data model to include the additional labs (up to seven); populate the laboratory results tables with updated lab values; and develop and run data checks for the new labs. The GHRI lead investigator is Denise M. Boudreau.
Efforts to Develop the Sentinel Initiative—Establish Capacity for Timely Response to Mini-Sentinel Coordinating Center (MSCC) Activities (Queries, Modular Programs): A one-year, $95,089 grant from the FDA to establish and maintain the administrative and technical capability to accept and respond to FDA queries related to medication safety. The GHRI lead investigator is Denise M. Boudreau.
Efforts to Develop the Sentinel Initiative: Prepare Summary Tables for Distributed Menu-Driven Queries/Test Modular Programs: A one-year, $46,132 grant from the FDA The GHRI lead investigator is Denise M. Boudreau
Efforts to Develop the Sentinel Initiative—Update Mini-Sentinel Distributed Database with Clinical Data: A one-year, $56,946 grant from the FDA for for establishing and maintaining the administrative and technical capability to accept and respond to queries. The GHRI lead investigator is Denise M. Boudreau.
MSI FLASH 03—Comparative Efficacy of Low-Dose Estradiol and the SNRI Venlafaxine XR for Treatment of Menopausal Symptoms: A nine-month, $301,889 grant from National Institute on Aging. Major Goals: To determine and assess the efficacy of venlafaxine XR and low-dose estrogen therapy relative to placebo in reducing the frequency of hot flashes; to determine if the global perception of improvement in hot flashes is greater on active treatment than on placebo; to evaluate whether the efficacy of either treatment varies by the presence of co-occurring menopausal symptoms measured at baseline (sleep disturbance, depression, anxiety, and sexual dysfunction). The principal investigator is Andrea Z. LaCroix.
Preliminary Studies Using Psychotherapy Referral Data for Use in Patient-Centered Outcomes Research: A one-year, $73,965 grant from Group Health Research Institute Development Fund to describe the availability (location of data tables, frequency of referrals from primary care, frequency of self-referral, selection bias in repeat measurements, missingness) of referrals for psychotherapy in GHC electronic health records in order to assess the suitability of these data for use in models of patient-centered outcomes; to determine the strongest predictors of failure. The principal investigator is Robert Penfold.
Radiation Exposure from CT Imaging and Collaborative Efforts to Reduce Dose: A two-year, $218,532 grant from Group Health Research Institute Development Fund to develop CT radiation dose benchmarks for Group Health radiologists and technologists that take into account patient size; provide feedback to both radiologists and technologists on how their doses compare to these benchmarks; and educate radiologists and technologists on how to lower dose while maintaining image quality. The principal investigator is Diana L. Miglioretti.
Research Infrastructure and Collaboration for Evaluation of Personal Health Engagement Programs: A one-year, $117,305 grant from Group Health Research Institute Development Fund to establish data source and metrics for evaluation of personal health engagement tools being implemented by Group Health Cooperative; to describe initial adoption of personal health engagement program; to clarify user needs for personal health engagement among vulnerable populations. The principal investigator is James D. Ralston.
Studying Colorectal Cancer—Effectiveness of Screening Strategies (SuCCESS)—Project 1/Screening: A five-year, $623,197 grant from National Cancer Institute. Major Goals: This project responds to the PROSPR mandatory comparative effectiveness research project dedicated to comprehensive study of the benefits and harms of the screening process. We will describe colorectal cancer (CRC) screening patterns among Group Health enrollees and compare the effectiveness of different screening and surveillance patterns in terms of reduction in the risk of incident CRC diagnosis, late-stage CRC diagnosis, and CRC mortality. The principal investigator is Carolyn M. Rutter.
System-level Tools for Helping Doctors and Patients Know Cancer Treatment Costs in Real-Time: A seven-month, $49,523 grant from Group Health Research Institute Development Fund to evaluate barriers and supports to making treatment costs transparent to both patients and oncologists in real time through key informant interviews with stakeholders and assessment of infrastructure; to develop simple prototype tools and assess their usability and usefulness to a small sample of oncologist and patients. The principal investigator is Nora Henrikson.
January 2012
GHRI recently received word of six new awards.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Colorectal Cancer Screening: A five-month, $37,882 grant from Group Health Research Institute Development Fund. Major Goals: To compare the effectiveness of IVR to usual care on colorectal cancer screening rates to increase adherence among 13,279 members within the network. To determine the cost-effectiveness of the implementation of IVR compared to usual care. The principal investigator is Karen Wernli.
Pilot Survey to Group Health Quit for Life Smoking Cessation Program Participants: A six-month, $38,412 grant from Group Health Research Institute Development Fund. Major Goals: The principal investigator is Jennifer B. McClure.
Safety and Health Care Epidemiology Prevention Research Development (SHEPheRD) Program: This is a contract task order for future work. No money awarded to date. A six-year grant from CDC. Major Goals: The goal of this contract is to provide CDC with an "as needed" mechanism for studies of health care-associated infections. Individual studies within the contract will be established by issuing task orders for sites participating in the contract. The GHRI lead investigator is Michael L. Jackson.
Support and Evaluation Resource Program for Research Centers of Excellence in Clinical Preventive Support Services: A five-year, $740,438 grant from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Major Goals: To provide technical support in the areas of collaboration, evaluation, and dissemination to three planned Research Centers of Excellence in Clinical Preventive Services funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The GHRI lead investigator is Judith Schaefer.
Type 1 Diabetes Cohort and Registry: A one-year, $100,849 grant from Group Health Research Institute Development Fund. Major Goals: To enumerate and characterize the population of persons with type 1 diabetes at Group Health; and to establish and prospectively populate a research registry of patients with type 1-diabetes based on automated data. The principal investigator is Jessica Chubak.
Understanding Physical Activity (PA) Programs among Medicare Beneficiaries at Group Health: A one-year, $101,032 grant from Group Health Research Institute Development Fund. Major Goals: To describe the characteristics of Medicare beneficiaries at Group Health who utilize PA programs compared to those who do not; to examine referral mechanisms of PA programs; to understand barriers and facilitators to participate in the PA programs among those eligible for this benefit. The principal investigator is Dori E. Rosenberg.