Use of a Medical Data Warehouse in a Laboratory Quality Improvement Initiative that Links to Patient and System Outcomes | CDC RFA OE16 1602

Opportunity Information: Apply for CDC RFA OE16 1602

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), through its Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology and Laboratory Services (CSELS), offered a discretionary funding opportunity (CDC RFA OE16-1602) to advance clinical laboratory quality improvement by making better use of information already captured in medical data warehouses (MDWs). The core idea is to work collaboratively to build, roll out, and evaluate a practical process for determining how MDW data can be used to identify, document, and close quality gaps across the full testing workflow, including the pre-analytic phase (everything that happens before testing, such as ordering, patient preparation, specimen collection and labeling, transport, and accessioning), the intra-analytic phase (the testing process itself, instruments, reagents, calibration, analytic performance), and the post-analytic phase (result reporting, interpretation support, communication of critical values, follow-up actions). A key requirement is that the quality gaps and the improvements pursued are not just internal lab metrics; they should be meaningfully linked to patient outcomes and/or broader health system outcomes, such as timeliness of care, reduced adverse events, improved diagnostic accuracy, fewer repeat tests, shorter length of stay, or more efficient resource use.

This opportunity emphasizes using MDW data management and analytics to generate actionable quality improvement insights. In practice, that means examining what data elements exist in the warehouse (laboratory information system data, electronic health record data, order and result timestamps, instrument QC data when available, patient demographics, clinical context, utilization patterns), how reliable and complete they are, and how they can be structured to support measurement. Applicants were expected to explore issues like data standardization across sites, mapping and harmonization of test codes, handling missing or inconsistent timestamps, and developing analytic approaches that can surface patterns tied to quality failures (for example, specimen rejection reasons by unit, turnaround time bottlenecks by shift, critical result communication delays, or outlier rates of recollection). The intent is to use those analytics findings to design one or more laboratory quality improvement initiatives, implement them in real-world settings, and then evaluate whether the interventions improved both laboratory process measures and downstream patient or system outcomes.

The funding instrument was a cooperative agreement, which generally signals a more hands-on partnership model with the federal agency than a typical grant. Rather than simply funding an applicant to work independently, cooperative agreements usually involve substantial federal involvement in planning, coordination, or technical direction. The activity category is health, and the program is tied to CFDA 93.064. The statutory authority cited is the Public Health Service Act, Section 317(k)(2), 42 U.S.C. 247b(k)(2), which is commonly used for CDC public health and laboratory-related cooperative work.

Eligibility was broad across public-sector and nonprofit organizations, including state, county, and city or township governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments; certain tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; and nonprofit organizations with or without 501(c)(3) status (excluding institutions of higher education in the nonprofit categories listed). Even with broad eligibility, the announcement includes a clear capability expectation: applicants needed demonstrated experience administering and evaluating standardized quality assurance programs across multiple, diverse laboratory sites, including both community hospitals and academic medical centers. That requirement points to multi-site scale and variability as a central feature of the work, suggesting the CDC wanted approaches that can handle differences in workflow, staffing models, test menus, and information systems while still producing comparable quality measures and insights.

Financially, the opportunity listed an award ceiling of $350,000 and anticipated making two awards. The posting was created on February 18, 2016, with an original closing date of April 22, 2016. Overall, the grant opportunity can be understood as an effort to move laboratory quality improvement beyond isolated audits or single-site indicators and toward data-driven, multi-site measurement and intervention using MDW analytics, with evaluation anchored in real patient and health system impact rather than laboratory operations alone.

• The Centers for Disease Control - CSELS in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Use of a Medical Data Warehouse in a Laboratory Quality Improvement Initiative that Links to Patient and System Outcomes" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.064.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2016-02-18.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2016-04-22. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $350,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 2 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education.

Apply for CDC RFA OE16 1602

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: