The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is an independent, nonprofit research funding organization that seeks to empower patients and others with actionable information about their health and healthcare choices.
What We Do
We fund patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) and research-related awards, issuing funding opportunity announcements several times each year.
PCORI’s unique place in the health research landscape stems from its unwavering focus on outcomes that matter to patients, and it is widely acknowledged as a leader in driving U.S. clinical research to become more patient centered. We are committed to ensuring that patients and other healthcare decision makers have a seat at the table throughout the clinical research process — helping to prioritize research topics, design and conduct the studies and share the results.
Research Done Differently®
PCORI embodies a holistic approach to generating and promoting the use of patient-centered evidence through these primary areas:
- Funding of patient-centered CER—to address questions important to patients and their caregivers to generate meaningful evidence that will allow them to make better informed health and healthcare decisions.
- Engagement in Research—involving patients and all key health decision makers across the continuum of PCORI’s work, from research topic selection to dissemination and implementation of results, to produce research findings that are useful, relevant, and trustworthy to those we serve.
- Dissemination and Implementation—to ensure that the results of PCORI-funded studies are easily accessible and can be used by those who need them to make better informed decisions on health and healthcare.
- Research Infrastructure—including enhancing the ability of PCORnet® to improve capacity to conduct clinical research more efficiently, improving the science and methods of CER, and supporting the continuing development of the health research workforce.
Through this holistic approach, as outlined in PCORI's Strategic Plan, we will build on the lessons of our work to date, broaden our network of engaged communities and partners, and remain responsive to the changing health landscape to help address health and healthcare challenges facing the nation.
As a learning organization and to effectively reach our goals, we pursue a wide range of evaluation activities, organized into a framework that flows from our strategic and operational plans and incorporates community perspectives and priorities.
Our Impact
Medical research, or patient-centered CER, funded by PCORI concentrates on health and healthcare challenges that confront people every day, including cancer, diabetes, maternal morbidity and mortality, opioid addiction, intellectual and developmental disabilities, rare diseases, mental health and equitable access to care, among many others. By funding research studies that compare multiple approaches to care, we provide people with information that helps them better understand their care options and which might be best for them.
Since its authorization by Congress in 2010, PCORI has awarded more than $4.5 billion to fund more than 2,400 research and related projects (explore our research portfolio). PCORI-funded research studies produce important results that are published in leading medical journals and presented at major scientific meetings. Results from studies we have funded are also taken up in a variety of clinical guidelines. We post results from every study we fund, with versions for both patients and clinicians.
What Guides Our Work
PCORI's work is guided by a strategic plan, developed with extensive input from stakeholders across the healthcare community and adopted by the PCORI Board of Governors in June 2022. Two foundational elements of the plan are the National Priorities for Health, which are ambitious, interconnected, long-term goals, and the Research Agenda, which provides a framework for advancing those priorities.
The Research Agenda guides PCORI in considering CER opportunities important to include within an evolving Research Project Agenda of topics to pursue through our work: Topic Themes that inform focused funding opportunities for patient-centered CER over a series of funding cycles.
The strategic plan reinforces PCORI’s longstanding commitment to accelerating diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in all aspects of our activities—through a health equity lens. We remain committed to increasing the diversity of PCORI’s community of stakeholders in our pool of applicants, awardees, and research participants, and to promoting inclusive PCORI convenings, such as our Annual Meeting.
In December 2019, PCORI’s funding was reauthorized, with key research focus areas: intellectual and developmental disabilities and maternal morbidity and mortality and rare diseases. The reauthorizing law also clarified that PCORI-funded studies should capture, as appropriate, the full range of outcomes data, including the potential burdens and economic impacts of healthcare services to the patient-centered outcomes and clinical effectiveness measures that have been hallmarks of the research we fund to date.
PCORI Executive Director Nakela L. Cook, M.D., MPH, and PCORI Board of Governors Chairperson Russell M. Howerton, M.D., FACS, discuss PCORI's unique role in patient-centered health research.
More About PCORI
PCORI's Mission to Help People Make Informed Healthcare Decisions
PCORI's Executive Director outlines the organization's creation and mission to fund research that helps people make better-informed healthcare decisions based on their needs and preferences.
Asking the Right Questions in Research
A patient co-investigator on a PCORI-funded study says patient engagement in research helps researchers ask the right questions.
