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Effective Health Care Program

Submit a Suggestion for a New Evidence Review

What health care decisions are you struggling with? Would a review of the scientific evidence help inform this decision? Share your ideas with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) Program. AHRQ will use these ideas to determine the focus of its evidence reports for next fiscal year (i.e., AHRQ can provide an evidence report at no cost). Your input is important!

Did you know that Federal agencies can contract with AHRQ through an Interagency Agreement (IAA) to conduct evidence reports? IAA contracts do not require suggestions to be submitted via this Web page. To get started or for more information on the process of establishing an IAA with the AHRQ EPC Program, please contact epc@ahrq.hhs.gov.

 

Before You Get Started

When you submit a suggestion, you are nominating a topic for a potential evidence report by the Effective Health Care (EHC) Program.

Evidence reports are based on existing published research. Therefore, there must be enough published literature about a topic in order for an evidence report to be conducted. If you are interested in submitting ideas for new primary research funding (i.e., not a topic for evidence report), go to Funding Announcements.

Submit Your Suggestion

Please fill in this form as completely as possible and email the completed form to epc@ahrq.hhs.gov, or you may mail a printed copy to:

Irene Brandt
Scientific Resource Center for AHRQ
c/o Portland VA Medical Center (R&D 71)
3710 SW U.S. Veterans Hospital Road
Portland, OR 97239

While we don't require your name or affiliations, if you provide contact information we may reach out to you if we have questions about your nomination. The information you provide in this form (except personally identifying information) will be publicly posted on the AHRQ Web site at Topics Nominated for a New Evidence Review.

You may attach supporting documents to your nomination.

Topic Suggestion

1. What is the decision or change (e.g. clinical topic, practice guideline, system design, delivery of care) you are facing or struggling with where a summary of the evidence would be helpful?

Please tell us about your issue. Consider the following areas:

Please describe the issue. Tell us about who is affected by this issue; the treatments, tests, or strategies that you are interested in; and the specific benefits or harms (outcomes) that are important to you.

Example 1: We are interested in the comparison of older antidepressant medications to newer ones. We are also interested in knowing whether there is difference if people are treated by primary care provider instead of a psychiatrist. We are interested in outcomes of symptoms of depression, suicide, and the side effects of treatment.

More explanation about Example 1

Example 2: We are interested in the impact of various and newer physician compensation plans. Specifically, we are interested in their effect on physician behavior, care quality, and care cost. We are also interested in how they have evolved in recent decades.

More explanation about Example 2

More Examples of questions

2. Why are you struggling with this issue?

Reasons could include:

  • Studies are conflicting and there is uncertainty about benefits or harms
  • There is variation in what healthcare providers are doing in practice
  • It is unclear how to encourage people to use an effective treatment or service. For example, our data indicate that not enough people are using an effective intervention or too many are overusing an ineffective intervention
The time needed to complete different types of evidence reports can range widely, and can take up to two years to fund and complete. Deciding which kind of report depends on what type of evidence is needed and when it is needed. Quicker reviews may be less thorough but can still provide useful about decisions about a healthcare-related issue. Please let us know about your timeframe/evidence needs.
Our reports have been used in many ways. These ways include healthcare decisions, practice guidelines, coverage decisions, program planning and others. Tell us about how you think an evidence report will help you with your healthcare-related issue. (Please include information about timing.)
Supporting Document
Files must be less than 50 MB.
Allowed file types: pdf doc docx xls xlsx.
(Optional) About You

To help us understand the context of your topic nomination, it is helpful to know more about you. The answers you give will not influence the progress of your nomination. You are not required to provide this information (although it is helpful if we have questions about your nomination). If you provide contact information, it will not be displayed on the EHC Program Web site.

(e.g., patient/consumer, physician/clinician/provider, professional society, or administrator)

Learn about more ways to get involved or receive email notifications about our work.