PCORnet® - Accelerating Patient-Centered Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research

Sep 30, 2026

Special issue commentary describing PCORnet® as a national, federated “network of networks” that enables patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research and broader health research. Funded by PCORI, the infrastructure integrates high-quality data, research expertise, and patient partnership, supporting pragmatic trials and observational studies at scale. After 10 years and over 300 projects across the US, the article summarizes lessons learned, highlights major initiatives, and outlines forthcoming directions for engaging partners, technical and social innovations, and advancing toward an integrated learning health system.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time8 min

AccessFree to download

PCORnet® overview and mission

Infrastructure scale and governance

Research uses and study types

Ten-year milestones and research projects

Special issue scope and invited themes

Paper groups: orientation, engagement, innovations, future directions

COMMENTARY PCORnet® : Accelerating Patient-Centered Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research Erin Holve, PhD, MPH, MPP* and Kathleen McTigue, MD, MPH, MS† (Med Care 2026;64:S169–S171) his special issue presents manuscripts reﬂecting the many T services and uses of PCORnet®, the National PatientCentered Clinical Research Network. PCORnet is a large, federated “network of networks” that facilitates innovative patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) and other health research at a national scale. As a ﬂagship infrastructure program funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute® (PCORI)®, an independent, nonproﬁt research organization, PCORnet is unique among national networks given the scope and scale of the network, with linkages to 47 million unique patients and more than 13,000 sites of care. Research expertise, strong governance, and a commitment to keeping the patient at the center of all activities enables PCORnet to be used for a range of study types, from pragmatic trials to observational studies. Having just celebrated its 10th year, PCORnet® Network Partners have demonstrated that infrastructure integrating high-quality data, research expertise, and patient partnership contributes substantially to national-scale health research. PCORnet has been used to conduct more than 300 research projects in the US, including notable CER studies such as ADAPTABLE, the aspirin study, Greenlight Plus, BP Lab, as well as PREVENTABLE.1–5 PCORnet is open to all interested investigators, partners, and funders, and enables broad access to research resources through the PCORnet® Front Door.6 Given this stage of maturity, now is an appropriate juncture to reﬂect on lessons learned using PCORnet for the conduct of research done differently. From the *Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Washington, DC; and †Department of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. The authors declare no conﬂict of interest. Correspondence to: Erin Holve, PhD, MPH, MPP, 1333 New Hampshire Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC 20036 . E-mail: [eholve@pcori.org](eholve@pcori.org). The views presented in this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the PatientCentered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), its Board of Governors, or its Methodology Committee. Copyright © 2026 The Author(s) . Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially without permission from the journal. DOI: 10.1097/MLR.0000000000002267 Med Care 􀀁 Volume 64, Number 2 Suppl 3, February 2026 This special issue was guided by an exceptional Technical Expert Panel (TEP) (Table 1) who advised on all aspects of the issue. In the fall of 2024, abstracts were invited for commentaries, empirical papers, case studies, and methodological papers. Themes include uses of PCORnet for patient-centered CER and other health research; engagement and patient partnership; infrastructure enhancements, and uses of PCORnet to accelerate progress toward an integrated learning health system. All abstracts were required to focus on uses of PCORnet to enhance the culture and capacity for patient-centered CER in the service of a transformed health research ecosystem. Perspectives from patients and other partners on all themes were explicitly invited. Forty-six abstracts were received. Among the articles in this special issue, the papers reﬂect key dimensions of thePCORnet ecosystem. The papers review PCORI’s role in funding the PCORnet infrastructure to enhance patient-centered health research, and reﬂect on progress in achieving these aims. Others address speciﬁc innovations—both social and techn

FAQs

What is PCORnet® and what does it enable?

PCORnet® is a federated “network of networks” designed to facilitate patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research and other health research at a national scale.

How is PCORnet® funded and what makes it distinct among national networks?

PCORnet® is funded by PCORI as a flagship infrastructure program, and it is described as unique for its scope and scale, linking to millions of patients and thousands of care sites.

What is the focus and structure of the special issue presented in the text?

The special issue includes multiple paper groups covering PCORnet use in patient-centered CER, engagement and patient partnership, infrastructure enhancements, innovations, and future directions, with 46 abstracts received for invited commentaries and related work.

Sep 30, 2026

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