Group Health Research Institute to receive federal stimulus funds from ARRA

Group Health Research Institute, formerly Group Health Center for Health Studies, will receive more than $15 million in federal stimulus funding from ARRA, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Institute was awarded 52 percent of the ARRA dollars (44 percent of the grants) for which it applied, a high rate of success for any competitive awards-and especially for these ones.

"We were extremely pleased to learn that our Institute will receive more than 50 percent of the proposal dollars we submitted," said Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH, executive director of Group Health Research Institute. This surpasses the Institute's typical success rate of about 30 percent. Competition for the stimulus funds was intense, with many institutions competing nationwide. "This reaffirms that Group Health's research agenda is well-aligned with national priorities to improve health care and make it more affordable," Larson added.

Much of the newly funded work is "comparative effectiveness research" (CER), which the Institute has been doing since before CER had a name. CER compares outcomes to determine which medical treatments, screening or diagnostic tests, and ways of preventing disease and delivering care serve patients best. Unlike research conducted in highly controlled experimental settings, CER enrolls populations in real-life health care settings that accurately reflect widespread community practice. As is customary in research, Group Health respects patients' privacy by stripping data of information that could identify individuals.

The National Institutes of Health is awarding the funds for 17 different projects over two years, including research to improve:

• cancer screening
• prevention and treatment of cancer, heart disease, depression, and muscle and bone problems
• Group Health researchers' ability to conduct research through large multisite collaborations and networks including the HMO Research Network

This work is in addition to more than 200 other research projects typically underway at the Institute, which had more than $34 million in grant revenue in 2008.

Many of the new ARRA-funded projects will be conducted in collaboration with researchers from other institutions. Group Health researchers listed below are leading ARRA projects where Group Health is the prime grant recipient:

• Diana Miglioretti, PhD, senior investigator, and Diana S.M. Buist, PhD, MPH, associate investigator: which conventional and cutting-edge breast cancer imaging techniques are most effective given individual demographics and risk factors ($4 million)
• Diana S.M. Buist, PhD, MPH, associate investigator: improving screening for colorectal and cervical cancer-and participation in these screenings ($4 million)
• Diana Miglioretti, PhD, senior investigator: forming a large new national multidisciplinary scientific collaboration to evaluate digital vs. film-screen mammography ($491,000)
• Beverly B. Green, MD, MPH, affiliate investigator: using electronic medical records and Web-based care to help overweight or obese patients who have uncontrolled blood pressure and are at risk for cardiovascular disease ($1 million); ways to improve rates of colorectal cancer screening ($466,000)
• Greg Simon, MD, MPH, senior investigator; effective treatment for depression care ($1 million)
• David Carrell, PhD, analyst/programmer: using "natural language processing" software to mine research-quality data from clinical text ($992,000)
• Carolyn M. Rutter, PhD, senior investigator: effects of screening and polypectomy on colorectal cancer commonness and death rates ($223,000)
• Jennifer McClure, PhD, associate investigator: outcomes of a program to promote the oral health of people quitting smoking ($448,000)
• Denise Boudreau, PhD, assistant investigator: how many women use and how many quit using the drug tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitor drugs for breast cancer ($320,000)
• Margaret T. Mandelson, PhD, associate investigator: environmental and genetic factors that may cause cancer of the pancreas ($95,000)

These Group Health researchers are taking part in ARRA-funded projects where Group Health is a subcontractor to another institution (dollars amounts are two-year awards to Group Health):

• Diana S.M. Buist, PhD, MPH, associate investigator: effectiveness of cancer screening (mammography and MRI to ultrasound, PET-CT, and blood- or tissue-based biomarkers) to determine extent of disease and plan treatment ($641,000)
• Ed Wagner, MD, MPH, senior investigator, and Paul Fishman, PhD, associate investigator: effectiveness and costs of treating advanced cancer; patterns and outcomes of cancer care in populations not covered by Medicare ($320,000)
• Karen J. Sherman, PhD, MPH, senior investigator: how alternative treatment for muscle and bone problems affects health care quality, use, and costs ($623,000)
• Katherine M. Newton, PhD, senior investigator: risk factors for atrial fibrillation, the common irregular heartbeat ($246,000); establishing the nation's largest surveillance system for cardiovascular disease among approximately 11 million members of health plans nationwide ($353,000)
• Erin J. Aiello Bowles, MPH, research associate: measures of breast cancer surgical quality ($149,000)