Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Institute Awarded $9 Million

Stethoscope image via shutterstock

The Patient-Centered Outcome Research Institute (PCORI) recently awarded Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute’s Department of Population Medicine $9 million to work as the Coordinating Center of a new nationwide data network. The network is being created in an effort to improve patient-centered comparative effectiveness research (CER).

The Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Institute’s Department of Population Medicine (the DPM) is a collaboration between Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare and Harvard Medical School. Founded in 1993, the DPM is the only appointing medical school department based in a healthcare plan. The DPM conducts medical research to gather data for better patient care.

In April, PCORI pledged $68 million dollars to support a new initiative — the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network — whose goal is to improve medical communication and enhance research capabilities through a network of representative data from patients nationwide.

After receiving eight detailed proposals over the course of the summer, PCORI considered the DPM’s to be the strongest. The department was awarded $9 million and appointed the database’s Coordinating Center last week.

Rachael Fleurence, PCORI’s CER Methods and Infrastructure Program Director, said in a press release:

“We had several compelling proposals to consider but in the end, the Harvard Pilgrim team’s proposal stood out as the strongest, with an impressive track record of relevant experience and high-caliber expertise.”

Using the $9 million awarded by PCORI, the DPM will work with two different groups of researchers — one made up of health professionals and one made up of patients interested in contributing — and will foster communication between the two groups and assist the groups in compiling gathered data into a national database.