About PCORI

CER compares the benefits and potential harms of different healthcare options, generating evidence that empowers patients, caregivers and other healthcare decision makers with information to make informed choices that reflect their needs and preferences.

CER is vital in today’s healthcare landscape because we have an ever-increasing number of effective care options for many conditions. Too often, people face choices without information to help them weigh the tradeoffs of their options and make informed decisions for themselves or their families.

Research Done Differently^®

PCORI’s unique place in the health research landscape stems from its focus on patients and their outcomes. PCORI is widely recognized as a leader in driving U.S. clinical research to be more patient-centered, which results in evidence that is more relevant and useful.

PCORI emphasizes the engagement of patients, caregivers and the broader healthcare community in all aspects of PCORI-funded research as well as the dissemination and uptake of research findings.

PCORI actively engages patients, caregivers and others from across the health and healthcare community in its work in a variety of ways. Advisory panels review and provide input on critical research questions, while PCORI’s funding application review process brings together patients, researchers and other stakeholders to identify high-quality, scientifically rigorous and patient-centered studies. Throughout the research process, PCORI requires ongoing meaningful engagement of patients and other partners in studies. When studies conclude, PCORI includes patients and stakeholders in the peer review process to ensure each study’s final report addresses the challenges faced by patients and their caregivers. Both the final research report and peer review summary are made publicly available on the PCORI website.

• Funding of Patient-Centered CER — supporting research that addresses questions important to patients, caregivers and other decision makers, generating meaningful evidence that enables better-informed health and healthcare decisions.
• Engagement in Research — actively involving patients and other health decision makers as partners across the continuum of PCORI’s work, from research topic selection to disseminating and implementing results, ensuring the research findings are useful, relevant and trustworthy for those we serve across the nation.
• Dissemination and Implementation — making the results of PCORI-funded studies easily accessible and usable by those who need them to make better-informed decisions about health and health care.
• Research Infrastructure — funding initiatives like PCORnet^®, a national resource that enhances the capacity to conduct patient-centered CER more efficiently on a national scale, and learning from the healthcare experiences of millions of patients nationwide to improve the accuracy, efficiency and relevance of CER.

Our Impact

PCORI-funded patient-centered CER concentrates on addressing the everyday health and healthcare challenges that people face across the country, including diabetes, obesity, cancer, maternal morbidity and mortality, intellectual and developmental disabilities, rare diseases, mental health and many others.  

Results from PCORI-funded studies are freely available to the public, with versions available for both patients and clinicians posted on our website. These studies often lead to findings published in leading medical journals and presented at major scientific meetings. Additionally, the results from PCORI-funded studies regularly inform clinical guidelines and health policies developed by others.

Since its authorization by Congress in 2010, PCORI has funded more than 2,400 research and related projects across the country (explore our research portfolio).

What Guides Our Work

PCORI's work is grounded in ongoing and meaningful engagement with patients and other health and healthcare decision makers. It is further shaped by a strategic plan, also developed with extensive input from patients and the broader health and healthcare community and adopted by the PCORI Board of Governors in 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.

In reauthorizing PCORI in December 2019, Congress identified intellectual and developmental disabilities and maternal morbidity and mortality as key research focus areas for the organization. The reauthorizing law also clarified that PCORI-funded studies should capture, as appropriate, the full range of clinical and patient-centered outcomes data, including the potential burdens and economic impacts of the utilization of medical treatments, items and services.

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