Patient Safety Learning Laboratories: Advancing Patient Safety through Design, Systems Engineering, and Health Services Research (R18 Clinical Trial Optional) | PA 21 266

Opportunity Information: Apply for PA 21 266

The Patient Safety Learning Laboratories: Advancing Patient Safety through Design, Systems Engineering, and Health Services Research (R18 Clinical Trial Optional) grant opportunity (PA-21-266) is a discretionary funding program from the Department of Health and Human Services, administered by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). It supports the creation and use of Patient Safety Learning Laboratories (PSLLs), which are essentially real-world, team-based innovation environments where researchers and practitioners work together to tackle patient safety problems that cause substantial harm and cost. The overall emphasis is on designing safer care processes by treating safety challenges as systems problems, not just individual performance issues, and by applying structured methods drawn from systems engineering and health services research.

In practical terms, the FOA is aimed at projects where transdisciplinary teams identify clusters of closely related threats to safe diagnosis or treatment and then move through a deliberate design-and-test cycle. These learning labs are expected to push beyond traditional professional silos, bringing together people who can look at the same safety problem from different angles such as clinical care, human factors, engineering, informatics, implementation science, quality improvement, and organizational operations. The program encourages teams to think like high-reliability industries by using brainstorming, rapid prototyping, and iterative refinement rather than relying solely on slow, linear changes. The goal is not just to describe safety issues, but to invent and engineer practical solutions that can function in real care settings.

A typical PSLL project under this announcement would start by selecting a patient safety target tied to diagnostic or treatment-related risk with a high burden of harm and cost. Teams then use a systems engineering methodology to map the care process, identify failure points and contributing factors (including workflow, technology, communication, environment, staffing, and policy constraints), and design interventions that change the system. Early concepts are developed into prototypes, which are tested and revised repeatedly through develop-test-revise cycles. Promising approaches are then integrated into a working system, improved further as needed, and finally evaluated for efficacy in a realistic simulated environment or an actual clinical setting. The “clinical trial optional” designation indicates that applicants may include clinical trial elements when appropriate, but they are not required to do so for every project.

This opportunity is offered as a grant under the R18 mechanism and falls under the health funding activity category (CFDA 93.226). It is broadly open to many applicant types, including state and local governments, tribal governments and organizations, public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3)), for-profit organizations (including small businesses and other for-profits), public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, independent school districts, and even individuals. That broad eligibility reflects the program’s intent to support cross-sector collaboration, since effective patient safety redesign often involves partnerships among healthcare organizations, researchers, technology developers, and community or governmental entities.

The FOA was created on June 25, 2021, with an original closing date of May 26, 2025, and it anticipates making a sizable number of awards (expected awards listed as 100). The award ceiling is listed as 0, which typically signals that the ceiling is not specified in the summary field and that applicants should rely on the full FOA details and budget guidance for allowable and reasonable costs. Overall, the program is best understood as a structured pathway for turning patient safety problems into engineered, tested, and operationalized solutions, with a strong expectation that funded teams will move beyond analysis into building, integrating, and evaluating interventions that can realistically improve the safety of diagnosis and treatment.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Health Care Research and Quality in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Patient Safety Learning Laboratories: Advancing Patient Safety through Design, Systems Engineering, and Health Services Research (R18 Clinical Trial Optional)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.226.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 25, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 26, 2025. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 100 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State 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, Individuals, For profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses.

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