Potential applicants for $60 million in grants to conduct advanced research in health information technology learned that any of their findings should be able to be put to practical use quickly to help extend the meaningful uses of electronic health records.
The Office of the National Coordinator, which provided more details of its Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) program to fund "breakthrough" research in health IT, will award four grants in March of about $15,000 each to create four interdisciplinary research program sites.
Each site will target one of four difficult hurdles to overcome in enabling the widespread use of electronic health record systems, ONC said when it first announced the program last month. Those include health information security, clinical support for physicians, health information exchange and population health.
The research sites will work with a variety of organizations to translate their findings into products and tools that can be put into use quickly to improve health IT, said Dr. Charles Friedman, ONC's chief scientific officer, in a Jan. 4 teleconference.
"The spirit of SHARP is the spirit of research, and that it should be publicly disseminated," he said.
Friedman emphasized the research should incorporate "a number of different points of view, approaches, and methods that come out of these multiple disciplines." The research would also build on work that's already been done by organizations, such as the Health IT Standards Panel and Health Level 7, both standards-setting groups.
Another key feature of SHARP projects will be to collaborate with other ONC grant programs, he said.
"Projects will work closely with other ONC programs making strategic contributions in health IT, including the health IT research center, the health IT regional extension centers, grants to states to develop health information exchange and health IT beacon communities," Friedman said.
ONC will create a Federal Steering Committee, made up of agencies which have an interest in the research to provide oversight of the sites, Friedman said.
