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Johns Hopkins Medicine Researchers Approved for Funding to Improve Patient Outcomes - 10/09/2014

Johns Hopkins Medicine Researchers Approved for Funding to Improve Patient Outcomes

Release Date: October 9, 2014
Sophie Lanzkron
Sophie Lanzkron
Credit: Johns Hopkins Medicine

Two Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine faculty members have been approved for research funding totaling almost $5 million from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).

Sophie Lanzkron, director of the Sickle Cell Center for Adults at Johns Hopkins and assistant professor of medicine and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Clifton Bingham, director of the newly established Center for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research in Rheumatology and associate professor of medicine, and their teams have been approved for the funding.

PCORI’s board of governors approved 46 funding awards last week. The awards have been granted pending completion of a business and programmatic review by PCORI staff and issuance of a formal award contract to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Lanzkron and her study team are to receive the funds, nearly $4.2 million, for a project called Comparing Patient Centered Outcomes in the Management of Pain between Emergency Departments and Dedicated Acute Care Facilities for Adults with Sickle Cell Disease. This project will demonstrate how an infusion clinic model vastly improves health care delivery for adults with sickle cell disease seeking care for their pain in comparison with emergency department care. The data collected will be used by stakeholders in the health care system to justify the opening of more infusion clinics. Expanding access to infusion clinics will allow patients in pain to have their needs met in a rapid, knowledgeable and compassionate fashion.

Bingham and his study team were awarded funding for a project entitled Making PROMIS Meaningful to Patients and Providers in Clinical Care. This project follows up on their PCORI Pilot Projects Program award, which has been evaluating how patient-reported outcome measures can be integrated within clinical care settings and how this information is used by patients and their providers to make health care decisions. They have been testing a system called PROMIS (Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System), which was developed by the National Institutes of Health, in people with rheumatoid arthritis who are seen in real-world routine care settings.

“In our data so far, we have shown how rheumatoid arthritis impacts multiple aspects of physical, emotional and social health,” says Bingham. “This new award will allow us to engage multiple patients and clinicians to establish cut points for symptom impacts measured by PROMIS that should trigger concern for patients and providers.”

“These projects were selected for PCORI funding not only for their scientific merit and commitment to engaging patients and other stakeholders, but also for their potential to fill an important gap in our health knowledge and to give people information to help them weigh the effectiveness of their care options,” says PCORI Executive Director Joe Selby, M.D., M.P.H. “We look forward to following the studies’ progress and working with Johns Hopkins to share the results.”

About PCORI

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is an independent, nonprofit organization authorized by Congress in 2010. Its mission is to fund research that will provide patients, their caregivers and clinicians with the evidence-based information needed to make better-informed health care decisions. PCORI is committed to continuously seeking input from a broad range of stakeholders to guide its work. More information is available at pcori.org.