Appendix A

Statement of Task

A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the National Academies) will plan and host a series of four public workshops to explore potential ways for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to accelerate the use of patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) findings in clinical practice to improve health and health care. The workshops will feature invited presentations and discussions examining topics in four main categories:

1. Ways to revise and improve the AHRQ’s proposed strategic plan, priorities, and strategies to make them clearer and more likely to lead to funding high impact and complementary projects while being consistent with the congressional mandate for investing funds from the PCOR Trust Fund (PCORTF), e.g.,
   • Opportunities to train and educate PCOR investigators, while also addressing AHRQ’s PCORTF strategic priorities
   • Development of digital tools to increase implementation of PCOR findings into practice
   • Sustainable strategies for expanding implementation of PCOR findings
   • The potential for development of an overall coordinated interdisciplinary approach to decisions about AHRQ’s PCORTF investments
2. Ways to measure progress and the impact of AHRQ’s PCORTF

2. investments as a whole on meeting its goals (in the short term, proximate, and long term). For example:
   • Currently available metrics,
   • Currently available data sources,
   • Potential for novel metrics, analytics, and data sources, and
   • Ways to harmonize data elements across projects that could be included in evaluating the short- and long-term impact of AHRQ’s PCORTF investments.
3. Ways to better align priorities and strategies and to create complementary collaborations between the agencies charged with using the PCORTF to improve patient-centered outcomes research and practice (AHRQ, PCORI and ASPE), so as to increase the impact of AHRQ’s PCORTF investments and their potential to sustainably reduce disparities.
4. Ways AHRQ can apply communication science to improve dissemination of evidence, gaps in evidence, and policy gaps to inform health policies and decision-makers at the local, state, and federal levels.

The planning committee, with support from National Academies staff, will organize the workshop, select and invite speakers and discussants, and moderate the discussions. A proceedings of the presentations and discussions at the workshops will be prepared by a designated rapporteur in accordance with institutional guidelines.