Improving the U.S. health care system continues to be a focus of national discussions. As such, funders of
health services and policy research are poised to contribute evidence to health reform debates. Yet, many
private and public research funders face challenges in capturing whether and how their research investments
have contributed to policy and/or practice change. This proposal and the proposed partnership between
AcademyHealth and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) build upon both organizations’
missions to ensure that rigorous evidence is not only generated but also understood and used in policy and
practice. We propose to convene public funders of health services and policy research to discuss their goals
and approaches for systematically capturing research impact and communicating relevant insights,
expectations and results to grantees and the public. Through this project we will: 1) identify the most current
approaches for measuring and communicating the impact of health services and policy research; 2) create
opportunities for dialogue among public funders of health services and policy research about their goals,
approaches, and challenges to systematically assessing the impact of the research they fund and
communicating these insights to grantees and the public; and 3) extend meeting discussion beyond meeting
participants to the broader research community key stakeholders. The heart of this partnership between AHRQ
and AcademyHealth will be the one invitational meeting of up to 25 participants followed by a public webinar to
extend the meeting discussion. Assuming an October 1 grant start date, we anticipate holding the in-person
meeting in the first quarter of 2018 and the public webinar in the third quarter of 2018. Meeting participants will
include representatives from public funders of health services and policy research who are senior level
research portfolio directors as well as analysts or evaluation staff engaged in documenting the impact of
research investments. We will secure a skilled moderator and identify up to two external speakers who could
provide brief presentations to synthesize the growing research impact evidence base and/or provide illustrative
examples from international or domestic efforts to inform the discussion. Following the in-person meeting,
AcademyHealth will synthesize the meeting discussion to highlight lessons learned and observations relevant
to the researcher community and general public. AcademyHealth will invite up to two participants from the
meeting to serve as discussants during the public webinar, where themes from the meeting will be explored
and webinar participants will have the opportunity to ask questions. The webinar will be archived and housed
on the AcademyHealth website and accompanied by written products, such as issue briefs, one-pagers, or
blog posts, to disseminate the meeting discussion to broader audiences. We will evaluate our effectiveness
through meeting and webinar participant surveys and web analytics.
