PCORI commits to new patient-centered CER to empower health care decisions

Funding awards for new patient-centered CER address a range of pediatric and adult health challenges

WASHINGTON, April 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Every day, millions of Americans make health care decisions without enough information to fully understand the trade-offs between approaches to care and make informed choices for themselves or their families. To help address these information gaps, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) has announced funding for new patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) studies across a range of conditions. These studies will help provide patients and caregivers with the evidence needed to make more informed health and health care decisions and more effectively manage their health.

Research Funding Highlights

• Sixteen new patient-centered CER studies addressing a range of health challenges
• Among the CER studies, eight focused on long-term follow-up of patient-centered health outcomes
• Six additional health research studies focused on CER methods and engagement in science

The newly awarded patient-centered CER studies include research comparing:

• Two durations of antibiotics for children hospitalized with common infections
• Treatments for neurodevelopmental differences in young children
• Interventions to treat pediatric anxiety
• Mammography with and without artificial intelligence assistance
• Care approaches for rare diseases such as spina bifida and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Eight of the patient-centered CER studies will examine the long-term effects of treatments, interventions and programs previously studied in PCORI-funded CER, aiming to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the potential benefits and harms of these approaches.

Additional research awards support four studies to improve patient-centered CER methods and two studies to strengthen the evidence base on effectively engaging patients and other health and health care decisionmakers through the design and conduct of patient-centered CER.

Accelerating uptake of PCORI-funded research results

PCORI also supports initiatives to accelerate the implementation of PCORI-funded CER results into clinical practice, addressing the often-cited 17-year gap between result publication and clinical practice adoption.

Through its Health Systems Implementation Initiative (HSII), PCORI has announced 19 funding awards focused on:

• Improving hypertension diagnosis and management
• Electronic monitoring of patient-reported outcomes during cancer treatment
• Optimizing outpatient antibiotic prescribing for children with acute respiratory tract infections (ARTIs)

With these new awards, HSII participant health systems have implementation projects across 31 states and the District of Columbia. These projects have the potential to impact care for 1.9 million patients across 3,800 care sites and include previously awarded PCORI-funded projects for intensive lifestyle treatment programs for weight loss as well as additional awards to improve antibiotic prescribing for children with ARTIs.

See the full list of new research and HSII awards on PCORI's website.

All award funding has been approved pending final PCORI contractual considerations.

About PCORI

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is a nonprofit organization authorized by Congress to fund patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER). CER compares two or more health care options, generating evidence about any differences in potential benefits or harms to empower patients, caregivers and other health care decision makers with information to make informed choices that reflect their needs and preferences. PCORI emphasizes the engagement of patients, caregivers and the broader health care community in all aspects of PCORI-funded research and research-related activities, including the dissemination and uptake of research findings.

SOURCE Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute