Medicine saves funding for research arm

A lobbying effort by physicians maintains a budget for "front-line" health care quality research.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. March 24/31, 2003.

What do you call a federal agency that shows primary care physicians how to save lives and tells politicians how to save billions of dollars? Some call it the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, but many doctors call it "underfunded."

In its 2001 report "Crossing the Quality Chasm," the Institute of Medicine recommended spending up to $1 billion on the type of front-line, primary care research AHRQ conducts and finances. But reports are one thing and reality is another. The agency received just $300.3 million in 2002 and was targeted for a $48.6 million budget cut this year.

Health care organizations appreciate AHRQ because much of its research is designed to be of immediate and practical use to the primary care doctor. So 130 medical, academic and business organizations (including the American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Physicians and the AMA) joined under the "Friends of AHRQ" umbrella to lobby Congress. They helped turn a significant 16% budget cut into a modest 1.6% increase for fiscal year 2003.

"Our final budget number is $303.7 million, and we also received an additional $5 million from the bioterrorism emergency preparedness fund," said AHRQ spokeswoman Karen Migdail. "It restores the cuts and gives us a little bit more on top of it."

According to David Helms, PhD, the president of Washington, D.C.-based AcademyHealth and leader of the Friends of AHRQ coalition, one reason politicians are warming up to the agency is that it shows how money can be spent more wisely. For example, Dr. Helms said an AHRQ study found $29 billion was spent on "preventable hospital admissions" in 1999.