The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality wants to hear about your innovative efforts to improve the delivery of health care services and invites you to participate in the AHRQ Health Care Innovations Exchange.
The Innovations Exchange defines an innovation as the implementation of new or altered products, services, processes, systems, policies, organizational structures, or business models that aim to improve one or more domains of health care quality or reduce health care disparities. AHRQ does not want to put too tight a frame around this term. Innovation can mean different things to different people, depending on sector as well as organizational and other contextual factors. An activity or policy that is standard practice in one health care system or setting may be cutting-edge for another. Our goal is to cast a wide net that allows for differences across the health care industry. The Innovations Exchange includes clinical and non clinical activities and tools that vary in degree of novelty, effects on quality or disparities, and level of supporting evidence.
Our Editorial Team will work with you to produce an accurate description of your initiative1. This page explains what we look for and how to submit an innovation for consideration.
If you have questions or think you have an innovation to submit, please e-mail us at info@innovations.ahrq.gov.
Why Participate in the Health Care Innovations Exchange? | Back to Top |
- Contribute to the Greater Good: You will help advance positive changes in patient care or health care policy beyond the walls of your own institution. By submitting your innovation, you will help build a rich resource that complements and enhances the usefulness of the traditional professional literature on health care services and health care policy.
- Become a Community Leader: You will join a national community of innovators, who can both learn from you and support your efforts to design and implement innovations in your organization. The Innovations Exchange will invite select innovators to serve as faculty for educational events.
The Editorial Team aims for breadth in the settings, populations, and services covered by the Innovations Exchange. If we receive a large number of submissions, we will evaluate how well the innovation expands the current collection of innovations on these dimensions, as well as priorities AHRQ has established. These priorities include the following:
- Vulnerable populations: AHRQ is interested in identifying innovations to help reduce disparities in health care and health status. Populations of interest to AHRQ are low-income groups, minority groups, women, children, the elderly, and individuals with special health care needs.
- Potential for high impact: The Innovations Exchange gives preference to innovations that significantly affect the overall value of health care. For example, the innovation may affect a broad population, address a critical health issue, or demonstrate large cost savings.
- Innovator interest in participating: AHRQ gives priority to innovators interested in becoming involved in other activities of the Innovations Exchange, such as participating in learning networks and writing commentaries.
- AHRQ-funded innovations: The Innovations Exchange gives priority to innovations funded by AHRQ but does not exclude innovations funded by other sources.
To be considered for a Service Delivery Innovation Profile or a Policy Innovation Profile, a health care innovation must meet six criteria. To be considered an Innovation Attempt, an innovation must meet the same criteria as an Innovation Profile, except for effectiveness. The criteria, explained in detail below, are minimum eligibility requirements. The decision to publish a description of an innovation ultimately depends on several factors, including evaluation by the Editorial Team, AHRQ's priorities (see above), and the number of similar innovations currently in the Innovations Exchange collection.
An innovation that appears to meet most or all of the minimum requirements can be submitted for consideration by going to How
To Submit an Innovation. Questions about these criteria can be sent to info@innovations.ahrq.gov.
The first two links below provide details about our inclusion criteria for health care service delivery innovations and for health care policy innovations. The third link combines both sets of inclusion criteria, with the portions that differ between the two highlighted in table form.
Our development process has several steps:
- Identification: The Editorial Team searches the published and gray literature, as well as the Internet, to identify activities that could be eligible for the Innovations Exchange. Innovations are also submitted by developers and researchers at various kinds of organizations.
- Assessment: The Editorial Team assesses each innovation against the inclusion criteria. Once an innovation is submitted, the
team typically responds with the results of this assessment within 1 month.
- Approval to proceed: If an innovation meets the inclusion criteria, the innovator is contacted. If willing to participate, the innovator is asked to confirm that he or she can speak on behalf of any collaborating organizations and that the Innovations Exchange can link to any pertinent Web sites. The Editorial Team does not proceed with the development of a description of the innovation until that confirmation is received.
- Development of Profile/Attempt: The Editorial Team drafts a profile of the innovation based on available written information and input from the innovator.
- Innovator review: The Editorial Team sends a final draft to the innovator to review. Any comments received from the innovator are incorporated as appropriate.
- Review: Published innovations are reviewed annually to ensure that the descriptions, including any Web links, remain current.
To submit a candidate innovation for our consideration, contact the Innovations Exchange at info@innovations.ahrq.gov. Please provide the following information in the e-mail:
- Name of the main organization, along with any other organizations that are participating in the innovation
- Name and title of the submitter
- Contact information for the submitter (e-mail address and phone number)
- Brief description of the innovation
- Brief description of results, including any impact on the delivery of patient care
- Description of the health care setting (e.g., hospital, community clinic, nursing home) or the setting of activities related to health care policies
- Description of the population on which the innovation is focused, if any (e.g., the elderly, children, racial or ethnic group)
- Any funding sources for the innovation
To determine what information to send us, you may review these documents summarizing the information included in a description of an innovation: Elements of an Innovation Profile (Word®; 78 KB) (PDF; 29 KB); Elements of an Innovation Attempt (Word®; 66 KB) (PDF; 22 KB).
(If you don't have the software to open this PDF, download free Adobe Acrobat Reader® software. 
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If you have printed information about your innovation, you can fax it to us at 301-315-5912. Please address the fax to Innovations Exchange Editorial Teams, Westat, put the words "Innovation Submission" in the subject line, and include your contact information.
You may also mail information to Russ Mardon, RA-1106, Westat, 1600 Research Blvd., Rockville, MD 20850.
After reviewing and evaluating your submission against the minimum criteria, the Editorial Team will contact you for further information.
If your innovation is accepted, the Editorial Team will confirm that you can speak on behalf of your organization and collaborating organizations and that the Innovations Exchange has permission to link to any pertinent Web sites that your organization maintains. Once we receive your confirmation, we will draft a description of your innovation and send it to you for review and comment before posting it on the site.
Note about privacy: If we select your submitted innovation for the Innovations Exchange, we may publish information you provide as part of the innovation description unless that information is confidential.
1The Office of Management and Budget has approved this information collection (OMB Control Number 0935-0147, Expiration Date May 31, 2014). The Control Number signifies that AHRQ has met the legal requirements in accordance with 5 CFR 1230.5 (b) Electronic Code of Federal Regulations
Last updated: February 13, 2013.
