Demonstration Projects to Promote Use of Interoperable Health Records in Clinical Research (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA AG 23 019

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA AG 23 019

Demonstration Projects to Promote Use of Interoperable Health Records in Clinical Research (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) is an NIH grant opportunity (RFA-AG-23-019; CFDA 93.866) that funds three-year demonstration projects focused on bringing interoperable electronic health record (EHR) data into clinical research involving older adults. The core aim is practical: test whether it is feasible to obtain participants' medical information from EHR systems, integrate that information into a usable digital infrastructure, and establish best practices that other studies can adopt. The emphasis is on learning what works, documenting repeatable methods, and showing real-world implementation rather than running a clinical trial.

A defining feature of this FOA is the required partnership model. Applicants are expected to team up with one or more currently funded research studies that are actively enrolling older adult participants or re-consenting them. In other words, the demonstration project is meant to be embedded in ongoing research operations, using real recruitment and consent processes and real participant populations. The proposal should clearly address how accessing interoperable health data will affect the partner study, including potential benefits (for example, richer longitudinal health histories or reduced participant burden) and potential risks or complications (such as workflow changes, delays, or uneven data availability across health systems). Applicants are also expected to discuss broader impacts beyond the partner study, such as how the resulting methods or infrastructure could generalize to other aging-related studies or research networks.

On the technical side, the projects are expected to collect medical information from EHRs that participants share, then bring those records together within a digital environment that can store, manage, and support analysis. A central challenge the FOA wants teams to address is harmonization: creating approaches to align and standardize data drawn from different providers, health systems, and record formats so the information can be compared and analyzed consistently across participants. Because older adults often receive care across multiple settings, the ability to link and reconcile information across providers is a major practical hurdle, and the FOA is effectively asking applicants to demonstrate workable solutions, identify common failure points, and propose best practices for overcoming them.

The opportunity also calls for informatics-driven analysis approaches suited to the complexity of EHR data, especially for conditions common in older adults. This includes methods such as natural language processing to extract clinically meaningful information from unstructured text (for example, clinician notes, problem lists, imaging impressions, or discharge summaries) and other computational techniques to characterize health conditions, comorbidities, or care patterns once the data have been harmonized. The intent is not just to warehouse interoperable records, but to show how those records can be turned into research-ready variables and insights relevant to aging research.

Administratively, this is an R01 grant mechanism under the NIH, categorized as discretionary funding support for health-related research. The award ceiling listed is $750,000. The original closing date provided for the competition was 2022-10-18. While an expected number of awards is not specified in the provided source text, the FOA frames these as demonstration projects, suggesting a limited set of funded efforts intended to generate concrete guidance and examples for the field. Importantly, the announcement is labeled "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," meaning applications should not propose an NIH-defined clinical trial; the work should remain focused on data integration, interoperability, feasibility assessment, and informatics methods rather than testing an intervention in a trial framework.

Eligibility is broad across many U.S.-based organization types, including state, county, and local governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with and without 501(c)(3) status; for-profit organizations (other than small businesses); and small businesses, as well as other eligible entities. The FOA explicitly includes Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, AANAPISIs, Hispanic-serving institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities, eligible federal agencies, faith-based or community-based organizations, regional organizations, and U.S. territories or possessions. At the same time, it clearly restricts foreign involvement: non-U.S. entities (foreign organizations and foreign institutions) are not eligible to apply; non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible; and foreign components, as defined by NIH policy, are not allowed.

Overall, the opportunity is designed to push aging research toward more routine, standardized use of interoperable clinical data by funding teams that can demonstrate end-to-end workflows: obtaining participant-shared EHR data, integrating it into a secure and usable infrastructure, harmonizing it across disparate sources, and applying informatics techniques to study older-adult health conditions. The expected output is both practical know-how and transferable best practices that can raise the quality, efficiency, and reach of clinical research that depends on real-world health information.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Demonstration Projects to Promote Use of Interoperable Health Records in Clinical Research (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.866.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2022-04-21.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2022-10-18. (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 $750,000.00 in funding.
• 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, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for RFA AG 23 019

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