AHRQ in collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF) seeks “Advancing Health Services Through System Modeling Research” proposals as they relate to health services. Through this partnership, AHRQ and NSF will foster new collaborations with researchers along with industrial and systems engineers to support the role of health IT. Over the last several decades there has been particular interest in applying the tools and techniques in industrial and systems engineering to improve the system.
The Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering have recently called for increased application of industrial and systems engineering tools to improve the healthcare delivery system but so far there has been limited impact by industrial and systems engineering on health services research and practice.
AHRQ and NSF conducted a workshop in September 2009 in which experts in both health service research and industrial systems engineering convened to explore the critical areas of research at the intersection of both fields while trying to fully understand the role that health IT should play. The workshop produced a vision where both engineering and patient-centered care would emerge as an integrated system addressing a global multi-cultural growing and aging population by incorporating systems engineering concepts.
Proposals will be accepted from January 15, 2012 to February 15, 2012. The estimated number of awards will be 3 to 6 with total funding amount estimated to be $1,000,000 to $2,000,000.
Go to www.nsf.gov/pubs/2012/nsf12515/nsf12515.pdf for more information.
