Alliance for Aging Research Receives $250,000 from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to Support Patient Advocacy Efforts

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Alliance for Aging Research ("Alliance") announced today that it is the recipient of a $250,000 Eugene Washington Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Engagement Award to support the continuation of the Alliance's Talk NERDY (Nurturing Engagement in Research and Development with You) to Me network. The Talk NERDY to Me program will educate a new group of older adult patients, family caregivers, researchers, and providers in patient-centered outcomes research.

"Patient-centered outcomes research informs patients and their family caregivers how to better communicate with healthcare providers and subsequently make more informed healthcare decisions," said Sue Peschin, MHS, President and CEO of the Alliance. "The Alliance believes educating researchers and providers in patient-centered outcomes research will lead to more engagement opportunities for patients and family caregivers."

Involving adult patients and family caregivers in decisions about their healthcare has been proven to increase quality of care and patient satisfaction. The main objective of the Alliance's Talk NERDY to Me program is to encourage patient involvement in public and private advisory roles on clinical trial review committees, institutional review boards, and other research, policy, and health education opportunities.

The Talk NERDY to Me program focuses on training patients and their advocates about patient-centered outcomes research and the clinical trials process, how to develop research questions that are important to older patients and their family caregivers, and how to find—or create, in the case of researchers and providers—patient-centered outcomes research opportunities and encourage others to do the same.

The funding from the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award will be applied to the program on June 1, 2021. With these additional resources, the Alliance will expand the Talk NERDY to Me network with a continued focus on patients and family caregivers of patients with age-related macular degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, atrial fibrillation, chronic pain, and/or heart valve disease, with an additional focus on actively educating researchers and providers who commit to establishing meaningful patient-centered outcomes research engagement opportunities within their work.

According to Greg Martin, PCORI's Acting Chief Engagement and Dissemination Officer, "This project was selected for Engagement Award funding because it will build a community equipped to participate as partners in CER and develop partnerships and infrastructure to disseminate PCORI-funded research results. We look forward to working with the Alliance for Aging Research throughout the course of their two-year project."

The Talk NERDY to Me network is comprised of patients, caregivers, medical providers, researchers, payers, and industry representatives. Instrumental to the success of the program is the Talk NERDY to Me Advisory Council, who is responsible for sculpting the training program, engaging directly with network participants, and ultimately amplifying the Alliance's overall impact.

About the Alliance for Aging Research
The Alliance for Aging Research is the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the pace of scientific discoveries and their application to vastly improve the universal human experience of aging and health. The Alliance believes advances in research help people live longer, happier, more productive lives and reduce healthcare costs over the long term. For more than 30 years, the Alliance has guided efforts to substantially increase funding and focus for aging at the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration; built influential coalitions to guide groundbreaking regulatory improvements for age-related diseases; and created award-winning, high-impact educational materials to improve the health and well-being of older adults and their family caregivers. For more information, visit www.agingresearch.org.

Contact: Lauren Smith
[email protected]
Direct: (202) 688-1229
Cell: (240) 498-8123

SOURCE Alliance for Aging Research