: This proposal supports the application from The Center for Health Research (TCHR), Kaiser Permanente under RFA HS-07-0008 to serve as the Coordinating Center (CC) for the Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERTs) Program (U18) sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The CERTs are a national demonstration program conducting research and education programs that advance the optimal use of drugs, biologicals, and medical devices. The CERTs program is organized as a network of 11 research centers, each focusing on a broad therapeutic theme. In general, themes represent areas where limited comparative information exists on the risks, benefits, and interactions of newer and older therapeutic agents. The CERTs intend to bring together all the stakeholders in the process of discovering, testing, marketing, prescribing, consuming, and evaluating therapeutics. Working from the organizational context of evidence-driven, capitated, population-based medicine, KP offers an important policy counterbalance to fee-for-service academic medicine. The CERTs'research agenda is also clearly focused on translational science. We will leverage our position as a Clinical and Translational Science Awards center and a member of numerous research networks to establish important relationships among researchers across the country. This proposal represents a private-public consortium among Kaiser Permanente (an internationally renowned, non-profit, integrated healthcare delivery system and CERTs partner), the Oregon Health &Science University (a major academic biomedical research and health center, as well as, in partnership with TCHR, one of the first 12 NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards), the AHRQ, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the CERTs Steering Committee (SC) to support the third cycle of the CERTs'research and educational programs. Given that the CERTs SC is the primary decision-making body, and the CC's role is to support and enhance the SC's functioning and coordination among the CERTs with respect to research, education, and fund-raising, the specific aims of our proposed CC are four-fold: 1) Provide a seamless transition from the previous CERTs CC at Duke University Medical Center to the TCHR CERTs CC to ensure that all ongoing and planned SC initiatives and CERTs research and educational activities are not adversely affected;2) Provide infrastructure and leadership support to the CERTs SC in carrying out the overall mission of conducting research and providing education that will advance the optimal use of drugs, medical devices, and biological products;3) Develop the CERTs strategic plan and tactical priorities for the next 4-year funding cycle;and 4) Conduct evaluations of the CERTs program to identify the extent to which the strategic goals have been attained, the implications of these successes, and barriers encountered and overcome.
| Hornbrook, M C; Holup, J (2011) Insurance coverage for erectile dysfunction drugs. Clin Pharmacol Ther 89:19-21 |
