MedStar Health Selected to Participate in AHRQ Research Network to Ensure Safe, Quality, and Accessible Healthcare

Focus Is Making Health Care Safer, Increasing Accessibility

MedStar Health has been selected by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to participate in its research network known as ACTION III (Accelerating Change and Transformation in Organizations and Networks). MedStar is one of just 13 healthcare organizations to win the five-year award. As part of this network, MedStar has become eligible to become a direct contractor with the federal government to undertake research focused on one or more of AHRQ’s priorities:

Improve the quality of health care and care delivery.Make health care safer.Increase accessibility.Improve healthcare affordability, efficiency and cost transparency.

With 10 hospitals, 20 diversified healthcare entities, more than 150 service locations, and 6,000 physicians, MedStar Health provides care to one of the most culturally and socioeconomically diverse areas in the United States.  MedStar has nationally recognized research experts in the MedStar Health Research Institute, the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, the MedStar Institute for Innovation, and the MedStar Institute for Quality and Safety. The Research Institute continues to be among the top 20 percent of U.S. institutions receiving funds from the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies.

“Through this network, we will leverage MedStar’s breadth and depth as a healthcare provider, our experience and our commitment to collaborate, in pursuit of better health outcomes,” said Neil J. Weissman, MD, president of MedStar Health Research Institute.

MedStar is already engaged in AHRQ’s ACTION II network, through a partnership with the Healthcare Research and Educational Trust, in a project called CANDOR (Communications and Optimal Resolution). CANDOR involves developing and testing an educational toolkit to help hospitals respond to, defuse and quickly resolve potential patient harm situations.   

In responding to the highly competitive bid process, MedStar organized its own network that includes 22 partners from outside the health system, including universities, foundations, a health department, hospital association, patient safety organizations, and a startup incubator.