ECRI Institute has been awarded a multi-year contract from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to establish the first national Healthcare Horizon Scanning System. The new system will serve to identify and monitor new healthcare technologies that promise significant impact on patient care and health outcomes.

Officials say the goal of horizon scanning is to provide a comprehensive, systematic, transparent process for identifying, tracking and monitoring new healthcare technologies, including drugs, medical devices, procedures, services and care delivery innovations that could signal important changes in patient care, health outcomes, or the healthcare system.

The horizon scanning process will contribute to AHRQ's deliberations for allocating resources for patient-centered outcomes research, and be a resource for the public more broadly.

"Every day we hear about new technologies that may lead to breakthroughs in medical science and patient care," says Karen Schoelles, MD, project director of the Healthcare Horizon Scanning System, and director, ECRI Institute's Evidence-based Practice Center. "Through this exciting new program, we will assist AHRQ in identifying those interventions that hold promise for addressing the agency's priority health conditions."

AHRQ has identified fourteen high priority areas for horizon scanning and patient-centered outcomes research:

1. arthritis
2.  cancer
3.  cardiovascular diseases
4.  dementia
5.  depression
6. developmental delays
7.  diabetes
8.  functional limitations
9.  infectious disease
10.  obesity
11.  peptic ulcer disease
12.  pregnancy
13.  pulmonary disease
14.  and substance abuse

"We will use a broad range of strategies and information resources to gather leads, collect information and diverse perspectives, and synthesize and report on them," says Vivian H. Coates, vice president of Health Technology Assessment and Information Services at ECRI Institute. "Thought leaders from throughout the healthcare sector will be invited to offer insights at several points in the research process to help us understand the contextual landscape in which new healthcare technologies and services could come into widespread use."

ECRI Institute is the world's largest independent, nonprofit health technology assessment and patient safety organization, and dedicates itself to bringing the discipline of applied scientific research to healthcare to discover which medical procedures, devices, drugs and processes best enable improved patient care. ECRI Institute has served as an Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) to AHRQ since the inception of the EPC Program in 1997.

"Our 43 years of healthcare experience in comparative effectiveness research, and in evaluating the likely future use of technologies, has made us keenly aware of the usefulness of building a robust public sector horizon scanning system," says Jeffrey C. Lerner, CEO and president, ECRI Institute. "Under the AHRQ-mandated objective and transparent research process, ECRI is contractually committed to an independent look back at the accuracy of our work."

Officials said ECRI Institute's three main subcontractors, The Lewin Group, Thompson Reuters Healthcare and Mathematica, were selected for their rich experience in healthcare horizon scanning activities, understanding of context that affects healthcare technology utilization and diffusion, and ability to independently assess the validity of a new healthcare horizon scanning system.