Attachment G-Advance Letter about the Evaluation

Attachment G: Advance Letter about the Evaluation

[ Use EHC Letterhead]

[date]

Dear Stakeholder:

As you may know, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) carries out its mission to produce comparative effectiveness research (CER) information through its Effective Health Care (EHC) Program. With the aim of improving the quality of health care through promotion of evidence-based decision making, the Program produces a variety of products for clinicians, consumers, and policymakers. Examples of these products and more information about the Program can be found on our website: http://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov.

Achieving the goals of the EHC Program requires effective engagement with a wide variety of stakeholders in CER, including patients, care providers, payers, manufacturers, and researchers. We need to take advantage of your various areas of expertise as well as to hear your special perspectives and concerns in order to best guide our work, and to ensure the Program has the desired impact.

As part of our continuous improvement process, AHRQ is conducting an evaluation of the EHC program’s governance approach. As part of the evaluation process, IMPAQ International, LLC and Abt Associates Inc. will conduct interviews and online surveys with Program staff and a wide range of stakeholders to gather your opinions about the Program’s general governance structure, stakeholder engagement, prioritization of research topics, and impacts of the Program product. The interviews will be conducted by phone or in-person and should take no longer than one hour. The online survey will take approximately 20 minutes to complete from additional Program staff and stakeholders.

As someone who has experience with the EHC Program, your input will be important for the purpose of this study. Therefore, I am hoping you will consider participating in the interview or survey upon request. You will be contacted in the near future by a researcher from IMPAQ International or Abt Associates.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this evaluation, please do not hesitate to contact the project director at IMPAQ, Ying Wang, at ywang@impaqint.com, or the project officer at AHRQ, Lia Hotchkiss, at lia.hotchkiss@ahrq.hhs.gov.

We appreciate your consideration, and look forward to your input.

Many thanks,

Jean Slutsky

Director, Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness