The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), a patient advocacy organization, will spend $2.8 million to help universities turn the results of two projects on sleep apnea and community health worker interventions into actual practice. The PCORI Board approved the following:
- $1.4 million for a University of Arizona initiative to support use of a phone-based peer support program, which has shown success in improving continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) adherence among people newly diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, at 11 sleep centers and clinics across the Banner Health system.
- $1.4 million for a University of Pennsylvania project to implement IMPaCT, a community health worker program shown in a PCORI-funded study to improve patient satisfaction and decrease hospitalization among low-income patients with chronic illness, at three healthcare organizations across North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
“We must also practice – at the system, clinician and patient levels – to align with the new evidence. This is a challenge. Old habits die hard and new ideas are often slow to take root,” said PCORI Executive Director Joe Selby, MD, MPH. “These new awards, like others we’ve funded to support dissemination and implementation of findings from our funded research, are designed to help ensure that these final steps happen.”
With these latest awards, PCORI has approved $25 million in projects designed to support the uptake of selected results from comparative effectiveness research it has funded to help patients and those who care for them make better-informed healthcare decisions.
