AHRQ Expands Therapeutics Education and Research Centers and Adds New Topics: Health IT, Economics, F...( ROCKVILLE Md. Oct. 12 -- The Age...),Health

ROCKVILLE, Md., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced today the award of $41.6 million over the next 4 years for a new coordinating center and 10 research centers as part of its Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics program. Four new centers are also added to the CERTs program.

"Expanding the Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics Program allows AHRQ to build a strong evidence base that consumers, clinicians, and others can use to make critical treatment decisions about therapeutic products and interventions," said AHRQ Director Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D. "The increased number and breadth of expertise in the CERTs will broaden the range of knowledge to help the health care system make measurable improvements in the quality and safety of medications and other treatments and health care."

The new AHRQ-funded CERTs Coordinating Center is Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore. In addition to assuming infrastructure and leadership support for the CERTs National Steering Committee and research centers, the Center for Health Research will expand the program's ability to translate research findings through collaborations with other research networks, including the National Institutes of Health Roadmap's Clinical Trials Initiative, the NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards, and AHRQ's Effective Healthcare Program.

In addition to the new coordinating center, there are now 14 CERTs program centers in all. The four new centers receiving first-time funding are:

-- Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, which will focus is how health

information technology can improve the safe use of medications

-- The University of Illinois at Chicago, which will focus is how

reinvigorating formularies promote best medication uses

-- Cincinnati's Children's Hospital Me
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