About CERTs
Annual Report Year 4
AHRQ Letter | Steering Committee Letter | Introduction | CERTs Progress | Certs Program Resources | Certs Parnerships and Collaborations | Conclusion | The CERTs Organization | Principles of CERTs Public-Private Partnerships | Peer-Reviewed Publications
Letter from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Dear Colleague:
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has sponsored the Centers for Education & Research on Therapeutics (CERTs) since its inception in 1999. The CERTs improve the health of Americans by conducting research on the safety and effectiveness of medical therapeutics-drugs, biological products, and medical devices. In this, their fourth year, the CERTs have increasingly expanded their research into ways that information technology can make the use of therapeutics safer.
We know that the value of research comes when it is actually used in everyday life. Therefore, the CERTs are searching to find out about the obstacles to moving from research to implementation and action. What barriers-technical, organizational, or habitual-keep some health care providers from using beneficial technology such as computerized provider order entry? What are the concerns of health care providers when they balance their use of newer antibiotics against the danger of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria? What actions can health care organizations and programs take to increase efficiency while maintaining or enhancing care for their clients?
To answer these questions, the CERTs are opening up new lines of dialogue with the health care community. In CERTs-sponsored workshops, experts from all areas of health care-including consumer groups and the medical products industry as well as providers-analyze the state of knowledge in the field and propose research questions. The John M. Eisenberg, MD, Memorial Lectureship takes the CERTs mission and dialogue about therapeutics research into academic medical centers nationwide. And the list of CERTs public-private partnerships grows each year.
We are pleased to present this report documenting CERTs activities in the fourth year of the program and look forward to more progress in the year ahead.
—Carolyn M. Clancy, MD
Director