Grants Awarded

A 1-year, $80,621 grant from the National Cancer Institute. Major goals: The major goal of this project is to develop and validate a comprehensive breast cancer risk assessment tool. The tool will predict risk overall and by subtype across major ethnic groups in the United States. We will also prospectively validate the model in different clinical settings. The Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute lead investigator is Ellen O'Meara.

Use Case Package 1: Empirical Application of the Sentinel EHR and Claims Data Partner Network to Address ARIA Insufficient Inferential Requests

A 1-year, $374,498 grant from the Food and Drug Administration. Major goals: The major goals are to assess the feasibility of developing computable phenotypes for 20 to 30 health outcomes that have been challenging to study using administrative claims data in the Active Risk Identification and Analysis (ARIA) system, employing more advanced methods such as natural language processing or incorporating richer data from electronic health records (EHRs). The project will also contribute to a protocol and analyses using real-world linked claims and EHR data to study drug-disease associations that were deemed too challenging to study using claims data alone. The Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute lead investigator is Sascha Dublin.

Use Case Package 2: Empirical Application of the Sentinel EHR and Claims Development Network to Enhance ARIA Sufficient Inferential Requests and Atypical Descriptive Requests

A 1-year, $393,087 grant from the Food and Drug Administration. Major goals: The major goal of this project is to develop an empirical case study for the Sentinel Innovation Center. We will identify an appropriate ARIA sufficient case study and apply subset calibration tools for correcting claims-only analyses for potential unmeasured confounding using data gathered from electronic health records.  The Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute lead investigator is Susan Shortreed.

A 5-year, $402,929 grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Major goals: The major goals of this project are (1) to address critical questions on the long-term efficacy and safety of anti-obesity medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration and (2) to assess hard clinical outcomes of these drugs (for example, incident diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular events) and their impact on health care use and costs. The Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute lead investigator is David Arterburn.

Identifying Optimal Antibiotic Regimens to Treat Urinary Tract Infections During Pregnancy — Supplement

A 1-year, $58,832 grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Major goals: The major goals of this project are to characterize differences in the incidence and treatment of urinary tract infection in pregnancy by race and ethnicity, including differences in choice of antibiotic and concordance of treatment with clinical guidelines; and to support Sandra McAteer, a master’s student in epidemiology at the University of Washington, in conducting research and gaining skills and experience needed for a successful career in maternal and child health interventions. The Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute lead investigator is Sascha Dublin.

A 2-year, $239,769 grant from the California Health Care Foundation. Major goals: To understand the Hazel Health telemental health implementation in schools. The Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute lead investigator is Natasha Arora.

Free From Market — United Healthcare Pilot Evaluation

A 1-year, $50,000 grant from Free From Market. Major goals: To evaluate a pilot program to provide access to Free From Market (a virtual food pantry) to high-risk pregnant people in Kansas who are experiencing food insecurity. The Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute lead investigator is Elena Kuo.

Incorporate Frequently Used Engineered Features from Electronic Health Records (EHRs) into the Sentinel Common Data Model in the Sentinel EHR and Claims Linked Data Partner Network (FE5)

A 1-year, $200,000 grant from the Food and Drug Administration. Major goals: To derive health care risk factors such as smoking status and history of suicide attempt from clinical free text using natural language processing. The newly generated features will populate a new table in the FDA Sentinel common data model. The Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute lead investigator is Robert Penfold.

Washington Learning Health System Embedded Scientist Training and Research Center (WA LHS E-STAR Center)

A 5-year, $4,999,458 grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Major goals: The major goal of the Washington Learning Health System (LHS) E-STAR Center is to train a diverse set of independent scientists with a solid foundation in LHS research who can change the paradigm of primary care research through research that rapidly develops and implements evidence while simultaneously building LHS capacity in safety net primary care settings. The Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute lead investigator is Paula Lozano.