Over the past six years, the Research Insights series, funded through an initial AHRQ conference grant in 2010, has successfully provided a unique forum to identify and examine evidence related to health care costs, financing, and organization and to highlight potentially researchable topics where the evidence base is lacking. Participant evaluations document that these meetings and associated materials have been useful to the policy ?intermediaries? who advise decision makers. For the continuation of the Research Insights series, we place even greater emphasis on innovation through webinar methods of convening and dissemination via blog posts and social media to extend the meeting discussions beyond the meeting participants. The continuation of this partnership between AcademyHealth and AHRQ will augment their respective efforts to support the creation of rigorous, timely research and disseminate findings to decision makers. Continuation of the Research Insights series will retain and expand the innovative features honed over the last six years to: 1) build upon the sentinel mechanism established during the first six years of the meeting series to identify current and emerging policy issues concerning health care costs, organization, markets and productivity; 2) identify the most current, well-done research on these content areas supported by all major funders of such work; 3) create opportunities for dialogue among researchers and policymakers about the implications and limitations of relevant existing research findings; and 4) extend meeting discussion beyond meeting participants to key stakeholder audiences by utilizing virtual convening, blog posts, and social media. The heart of the Research Insights project will be the one invitational meeting of up to 40 participants and one open webinar on a related topic to be held each year of the grant. We anticipate holding the in-person meetings in February, March or April of each year (2018-2020) and their associated webinars will follow two to three months later, in conjunction with the release of the meeting issue brief. A Project Advisory Committee (PAC) will meet in October of each year to identify and prioritize meeting topics based on: 1) current policy relevance; 2) availability of relevant evidence from research; and 3) gaps in previous dissemination efforts. Members of the PAC will also advise staff about the agenda, suggested moderator and speakers, and invitations for each meeting. Meeting participants will include federal and state policymakers, intermediaries and leading expert researchers. AHRQ Priority Populations will be emphasized through meeting topic selection and targeted research presentations. Each meeting will result in an issue brief and an AcademyHealth blog post, and we will make webinar recordings publicly available through our website. AcademyHealth will continue to evaluate the grant using participant surveys, internet statistics, and feedback from the PAC, and we will also survey meeting participants following the meeting when we release the issue brief to better measure the impact and outcomes of the meeting and its related materials on participants.
Research Insights: A Conference Grant Proposal to Disseminate Research on Health Care Costs, Organizations, Markets and Productivity Narrative AcademyHealth seeks a Conference Grant to renew the partnership established with AHRQ through the Research Insights meeting series. The heart of the project will be the one invitational meeting of up to 40 policymakers and intermediaries and one open webinar targeting state policymakers and other key stakeholder audiences in each of the grant?s three years. Each session will synthesize evidence on current and emerging policy issues related to the costs, organization and financing of health care, identify important gaps for future research to address, and result in issue briefs, blog posts, bibliographies of key research, and webinars made available to the public.
