STRATEGIC PLAN - ASPE - U.S. Department of Health and Human ...

CHAPTER 5: Scientific Research and DevelopmentClinical Preventive ServicesThe Guide to Clinical Preventive Services providesrecommendations on screening, counseling, andpreventive medication topics and includes clinicalconsiderations for each topic. This new pocketguide provides general practitioners, internists,family practitioners, pediatricians, nurses, andnurse practitioners with an authoritative source formaking decisions about preventive services. HHS willcontinue to support the Guide to Clinical PreventiveServices and disseminate its systematic reviewfindings via its Web site.HHS also supports a joint Clinical Decision Supportprogram/project planning and coordination effort.This project will provide recommendations and anaction plan designed to advance the development,widespread adoption, and value of clinical decisionsupport in improving health and the quality and safetyof health care delivery. AHRQ, CMS, IHS, and ONC arecollaborators within HHS. The project also includesnon-Federal partners, including the CertificationCommission for Healthcare Information Technology,Thomas Macromedia, Brigham and Women’s Hospital,Partners HealthCare, American Medical InformaticsAssociation, and Oregon Health & Science University.Dissemination of FindingsAHRQ plays an important role in translational researchand dissemination of research findings. AHRQ conductsand supports research on value-based purchasing tohelp meet these information needs, including articlesfor the field on how to design, implement, and evaluatevalue-based purchasing programs. AHRQ’s studiesand reports will expedite the cycle of research sothat purchasers have quicker access to findings onvalue-based purchasing and will provide guidance ondecisionmaking related to value-based purchasing.AHRQ’s Accelerating Change and Transformation inOrganization and Networks program will promoteinnovation in health care delivery accelerating thedevelopment, implementation, dissemination, anduptake of demand-driven and evidence-based products,tools, strategies, and findings.AHRQ’s Innovations Clearinghouse, an online searchabledatabase and repository of innovations in health servicedelivery, will capture effective methods of disseminatingand sustaining improvements in the delivery of healthcare. In addition, the Innovations Clearinghouse willserve as a forum for learning about innovation andchange. It will provide a national-level, publicly accessiblemechanism for obtaining objective, detailed informationon health care innovations and tools and will promotetheir dissemination, replication, adaptation, and use.Dissemination of InformationHHS also develops and disseminates informationand guidelines based on applied research results. Forexample, NIH continues to develop and disseminateguidance related to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome(SIDS). SIDS, a syndrome of unknown cause, is definedas the sudden death of an infant younger than 1 year ofage, which remains unexplained even after a thoroughcase investigation, autopsy, and review of the clinicalhistory. SIDS is the leading cause of postneonatalmortality in the United States. Led by NIH incollaboration with various sponsors, the NationalBack to Sleep public health education campaign waslaunched in 1994 after the American Academy ofPediatrics recommended back sleeping as the safestsleep position for infants younger than 1 year of age.Since the launch of the campaign, the SIDS rate hasdropped by 50 percent.However, despite the overall success of the campaign,African-American infants are placed to sleep on theirstomachs more often than are White or Caucasianinfants. The SIDS rate for African-American infantsis two times greater than that of White or Caucasianinfants. In collaboration with African-Americanorganizations, NIH has developed comprehensivestrategies to reduce SIDS in African-Americancommunities. First, NIH launched a multiyearproject to disseminate the American Academy ofPediatrics safe sleep guidelines in Mississippi. Theproject has multiple components, including trainingpublic health workers to convey SIDS risk reductionmessages, developing partnerships with State andHHS Strategic Plan FY 2007-2012125