CEPI Evidence Discovery And Retrieval (CEDAR) Project

In 2016, with funding from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) Trust Fund, AHRQ initiated a multi-component program aimed at advancing PCOR findings into practice through clinical decision support (CDS). This program has funded grants and contracts focused on disseminating PCOR findings through CDS, an overall evaluation and horizon-scanning project, the CDS Innovation Collaborative, and CDS Connect. CDS Connect is a prototype, web-based infrastructure for sharing interoperable CDS and includes a repository, CDS authoring tool, and multiple open-source software packages. CDS Connect matches CDS developers interested in sharing and disseminating CDS with CDS implementers who may reuse the CDS for further innovation and local adaptation. CDS Connect and its tools aim to make CDS more shareable, interoperable, and publicly available.

With the reauthorization of the PCOR Trust Fund in 2019, AHRQ continues to focus on its mandate to disseminate PCOR findings into clinical practice. In addition to CDS Connect, AHRQ’s Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement (CEPI) has invested in other repositories of evidence and PCOR findings, such as the repositories that support the Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) Program and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). AHRQ has recognized the need for these repositories to be more FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable).

The goal of the CEPI Evidence Discovery and Retrieval (CEDAR) project was to make PCOR findings within AHRQ repositories more FAIR through technologies used by clinicians, researchers, implementers, patients, and others. Specifically, this work developed prototype infrastructure that demonstrated standards-based, application programming interface (API)-enabled discovery and retrieval of underlying PCOR findings within CEPI repositories, such as the EPC program, USPSTF recommendations, and CDS Connect. Deliverables included an environmental scan and gap analysis, a reference implementation for the prototype infrastructure/API, a pilot demonstration, and publicly available documentation and reports. CEDAR is open source and freely available.