VA Center for Clinical Management Research

Since the Ann Arbor VA Center for Clinical Management Research (CCMR), an HSR&D Center of Excellence (CoE), became a full Center in 1996, it has gone from a small group of investigators with two VA-funded projects to an elite health services research center with 39 core investigators and annual funding of $18.5 million in FY ’12. CCMR includes two affiliated programs: the VA Serious Mental Illness Treatment, Resource, and Evaluation Center (SMITREC) and the Diabetes QUERI (Quality Enhancement Research Initiative). Our CoE is producing innovative research that provides VHA leaders with practical solutions to our most common and costly clinical management challenges. In the past year, we refined our research priorities and began a transition to three new focused areas of research, which we feel describe our current work and future goals:

1.  Incorporating individual patient clinical data and preferences in predictive modeling, decision-support tools, and performance measures that increase appropriateness and Veteran-centeredness of care;
2.  Developing, implementing, and evaluating systems-based approaches to improve safety and outcomes for our most vulnerable, high-risk, and complex patients; and
3.  Using innovative approaches to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of patient self-management and treatment engagement. 

National

VA Research & Development

Centers of Excellence

Resource Centers

Address

USPS:
HSRD/SMITREC (11H)
P.O. Box 130170
Ann Arbor, MI 48113-0170

Fed Ex:
HSRD/SMITREC (11H)
2215 Fuller Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48105

 CCMR Affiliated Centers 

Contact us 

CCMR Staff 

We currently have a total of 39 core investigators (23 MDs, 15 PhDs, 1 MPH), representing a wide range of backgrounds and skills. In addition, we have approximately 150 research and administrative staff. Our leadership team remains in place. Dr. Kerr is Director of CCMR and Dr. Julie Lowery remains Associate Director for Operations. Dr. Timothy Hofer is Associate Director for Analytic and Information Resources (since FY10). Dr. Hofer oversees staff who help to maintain IT functioning and data security for our CoE, and is the main point of contact with our hospital OI&T Service. He also is a lead methodologist for our CoE and helps to set the research agenda in outcomes and performance measurement. We are transitioning to a number of functional cores to support our investigators and staff: Methods (led by Hofer, Hayward, Forman); Partnerships for Implementation and Evaluation (led by Sales, Kilbourne); Patient-Centered Technology (led by Piette): Mentorship (led by Heisler, Ilgen); and Communications (led by Lowery, Blow).

Research Projects 

In 2012 CCMR investigators were funded for a total of 91 unique research projects. Our investigators served as principal investigators on 17 HSR&D IIR grants, 2 HSR&D; SDRs, 1 QUERI SDP, 4 QUERI RRPs, and 13 NIH grants, as well as grants from VA partners, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, State of Michigan, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Michigan. Four new VA-funded studies that started in FY 2012 are profiled here—one in each of our research focus areas (including two that are supported by operations partners) and one cross-cutting SDR.

Research Products

CCMR investigators (including core and affiliate investigators) published 221 journal articles in the past year (up from 205 journal articles in 2011), and made 134 presentations (up from 103 in 2011) at regional, national, and international conferences. There is additional information here.