Featured In This Issue
- Medical Care Special Issue Explores the Power of PCORnet
- PCORnet® Patient Partner Greg Merritt Imagines the Future of Patient-Centered Research
- PCORnet® Playbook Module Offers Guidance on Sharing Research Results with the Health Community
- Research Highlight Shines Spotlight on PCORnet® Studies to Improve the Health and Healthcare of Children
- A New PCORnet® Population Insights Report Highlights the Capacity of the Network to Support Research on Obesity, Diabetes, and other Metabolic and Endocrine Conditions
Funding Opportunities: Read Below for the Latest Funding Announcements in Engagement, Methods, and Broad Programmatic Studies and Share with Your Network of Researchers
Events: Explore Learning Opportunities and Strengthen Your Research
- Upcoming Best Practice Sharing Session featuring the PROTEUS Consortium: Tools and resources for capturing and communicating patient-reported outcomes | February 18, 1-2 pm (ET)
Research Results: Be sure to follow PCORnetwork on LinkedIn for continuous updates on Published Insights from more than 1,000 study publications Powered by PCORnet®, on topics including Epilepsy, Atrial Fibrillation, Computable Phenotypes for Identifying Pulmonary Embolism in Children, and More
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Explore the Power of PCORnet
Discover the full power of PCORnet in a special supplement recently published in Medical Care. This issue showcases a collection of manuscripts that explore how PCORnet is helping to transform patient-centered research, including an introduction to the PCORnet infrastructure, a look at its growth over the past decade, inspiring examples of research powered by PCORnet®, innovative approaches to engagement and partnership, and insights from PCORnet® Network Partners on implementing new technologies in research.
Explore the supplement and see how PCORnet is shaping the future of health research.
Greg Merritt in Conversation with Nakela L. Cook at the 2025 PCORI Annual Meeting
The 2025 PCORI Annual Meeting was held in Washington, D.C., in October. This two-day event brought together patients, caregivers, and the broader healthcare community to network, learn about the latest findings from PCORI-funded research and research-related projects, and share in rich discussions aimed at advancing patient-centered health research.
In the opening day keynote, PCORnet® Patient Partner Greg Merritt, PhD, joined PCORI Executive Director Nakela L. Cook, MD, MPH, to explore how patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) can guide decision-making and drive meaningful impacts in an ever-evolving healthcare landscape. Merritt reflected on his journey to becoming a Patient Partner and how critical it is to involve patients early in study planning and compensate them for their contributions. Merritt and Cook also discussed the promise of artificial intelligence tools to advance patient-centered research and health dissemination. Merritt said he sees the future of patient-centered research as careful, kind, and connected. Many of these themes are included in a new Medical Care article from PCORnet Patient Partners, “Patient Voices Leading Change: A Call to Action for Careful, Kind, and Connected Patient-Partnered Research in PCORnet®,” for which Dr. Merritt served as lead author.
As the session ended, Merritt reflected: “I’m hoping [one day] you’re sitting around with other researchers, and somebody says, ‘You know, we used to do research without patient partners, from the question formulation all the way to dissemination.’ And people will laugh at that, saying, ‘There’s no possible way this society did something like that.’”
PCORnet® Playbook Module Offers Guidance on Sharing Research Results to Improve Health Outcomes
Whether you are a new or an experienced researcher, the PCORnet® Playbook is your go-to guide for navigating the PCORnet infrastructure, tapping into expert support, and integrating patient perspectives into your research from the start.
PCORnet® Playbook Module 4: Sharing Your Research Results is now available to guide you in broadly disseminating your research findings in ways that are meaningful and actionable to improve health outcomes. Module 4 describes several dissemination strategies and methods that may be used by a variety of studies, such as pragmatic, interventional, and observational studies, along with resources and examples to inspire you as you are developing your own dissemination plan.
New Research Highlight Shines Spotlight on PCORnet® Studies to Improve the Health and Healthcare of Children
A new research highlight showcases how PCORnet® Studies are using the PCORnet infrastructure to conduct patient-centered pediatric research across therapeutic areas including nephrology, cardiology, and metabolic disorders. Pediatric patients across all 50 states from birth to age 20 represent more than 27% of the total population of patients served by PCORnet® Clinical Research Networks, making research that promotes healthy children and youth a priority for the network.
Reflecting on his experience as the Principal Investigator for the Pediatric KIDney Stone (PKIDS) Care Improvement Network, Gregory Tasian, MD, said, “PKIDS at its core has turned around the way we conduct research in pediatric surgery. We turn to our patient and family partners to learn what are the questions we should be asking and what outcomes we should be measuring.”
PKIDS at its core has turned around the way we conduct research in pediatric surgery. We turn to our patient and family partners to learn what are the questions we should be asking and what outcomes we should be measuring.
— Gregory Tasian, Principal Investigator, Pediatric KIDney Stone (PKIDS) Care Improvement Network
PCORnet® Population Insights Report Highlights the Capacity of the Network to Support Research on Obesity, Diabetes, and other Metabolic and Endocrine Conditions
This new report offers insights into the capacity of the network to support meaningful research on conditions that affect weight, growth, cholesterol, blood sugar, and more.
The report offers a comprehensive overview of the demographics and geographic characteristics of more than 41 million adults and children who received healthcare services at clinical sites participating in PCORnet in 2024.
PCORI® Funding Opportunities
Now Open: Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award
PCORI has released the Spring 2026 Cycle funding announcements for the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award Program. The program supports projects that encourage active, meaningful involvement of patients, families, caregivers, and the broader healthcare community as integral members of the patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) enterprise. Funds are available for capacity building, dissemination, and convening meetings and conferences to further patient-centered CER.
Key Dates
- Online System Opens - January 21, 2026, 9 am (ET)
- Letter of Intent Deadline - March 30, 2026, 5 pm (ET)
- Application Deadline - July 13, 2026, 5 pm (ET) (By invitation only)
Upcoming Funding Opportunities Opening April 1
PCORI will release the Cycle 2 2026 Improving Methods for Conducting Patient-Centered Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research (CER) funding announcement on April 1, 2026. This program seeks to fund studies that address high-impact methodological gaps in patient-centered CER. The preannouncement provides potential applicants with additional time to identify collaborators, obtain patient and stakeholder input on potential studies, and develop responsive, high-quality applications. Funds are available for patient-centered measurement, real-world data, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and improving study design to further patient-centered CER. Learn more at an applicant townhall on April 6 at 12 pm (ET).
PCORI will also release a Broad Pragmatic Studies Category 3 BPS funding opportunity including a “Category 3” option for researchers aiming to use PCORnet to conduct patient-centered comparative CER. Learn more at an applicant townhall on April 9 at 11:30 am (ET).
Please review all PCORI funding opportunities and consider how you can use PCORnet resources to achieve your research goals.
- Improving Methods for Conducting Patient-Centered Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research
- Broad Pragmatic Studies
- Addressing Sensory Health Needs Across the Lifespan PCORI Funding
- Phased Large Awards for Comparative Effectiveness Research
- Advancing the Science of Engagement in Research PCORI Funding Announcement
Key Dates
- Online System Opens - April 1, 2026
- Letter of Intent Deadline - April 28, 2026, 5 pm (ET)
- Letter of Intent Status Notification – June 2, 2026
- Application Deadline - Sept. 1, 2026, 5 pm (ET) (By invitation only)
Explore these learning opportunities to strengthen your research and gain insights from studies utilizing the PCORnet infrastructure.
Best Practice Sharing Session
Join the Coordinating Center for PCORnet® for a Best Practice Sharing Session. Contact [email protected] for a calendar invite.
- February 18 at 1 pm (ET)
In this webinar, Drs. Claire Snyder, Norah Crossnohere, and Anne Schuster will share tools and resources from the PROTEUS Consortium for capturing and communicating patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in clinical care and for research, and Dr. Keith Marsolo will describe efforts to work with sites participating within PCORnet to load PROs into their local PCORnet® Common Data Models.
Read the Latest Published Insights from Studies Powered by PCORnet®
- Assessing and improving research readiness in PCORnet®(Funder: PCORI)
- Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) Summit: Recommendations and priorities for clinical action, awareness, public health and epidemiology, and basic science (Funder: Partners Against Mortality in Epilepsy)
- The PaTH from discovery to implementation: Using a PCORnet® Clinical Research Network's own research to prioritize topics for collaborative health improvement activities (Funder: PCORI)
- A novel Computable phENotype To Identify Pulmonary Embolism in chilDrEn: The CENTIPEDE Study (Funder: PCORI)
- Traditional and HIV-Specific Risk Factors Associated With Atrial Fibrillation Among Underrepresented Minority Groups With HIV (Funders: National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences)
- Development and implementation of an entity relationship diagram for perinatal data (Funder: NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences)
- Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction Across the Spectrum of Body Mass Index: Hemodynamic and Echocardiographic Characteristics and Outcomes (Funder: PCORI)
Follow PCORnet on LinkedIn
Did you know that PCORnet is now on LinkedIn? Follow us to join the conversation, stay connected, and get the latest updates on how the PCORnet infrastructure is improving the nation’s capacity to efficiently conduct patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) through health data, research expertise, and patient insights.
Interested in how the PCORnet infrastructure can support your research? Connect with the PCORnet® Front Door—your gateway to opportunities.
PCORnet® is intended to improve the nation’s capacity to efficiently conduct patient-centered health research, particularly comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER), by providing a large, highly representative network of health data, research expertise, and patient insights. PCORnet® has been developed with funding from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI®).