About HCFO

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The Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) initiative, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, strives to bridge the health policy and health services research communities by reaching two primary objectives:

  • To provide public and private decision-makers with usable and timely information on health care policy, financing, and market developments, and
  • To bring together the policy and research communities through significant convening, issues identification, research translation, and communication activities. 

HCFO supports investigator-initiated research and policy analysis and evaluation projects examining major changes in health care financing and organization, and their effects on cost, access, and quality. This is a multi-faceted initiative that includes a number of integrated activities designed to further its objectives, including grantmaking, technical assistance, convening, issues identification, and a broad range of dissemination and communication activities such as research translation and synthesis. AcademyHealth provides overall direction and technical assistance for the program.

Grantmaking

Launched in 1989, HCFO is an ongoing program of the Foundation. In October 2007, the Foundation reauthorized HCFO for $11 million over three years. The program features a rolling online grant application process that provides feedback and assistance to applicants and grantees. Periodically, special solicitations on specific topics, or promoting the use of specified data sets, are issued under the HCFO initiative. Both RWJF and HCFO staff will review all proposals. In addition, proposals may be peer-reviewed by selected external reviewers who have extensive technical knowledge or expertise on the particular topic or methodology. Before you apply for funding, take a look around our site to see if your project is similar to others we have funded. You can:

You may submit small grant proposals for projects costing less than $100,000 and expected to last one year or less. If you prefer, you may submit a brief proposal before a full proposal for additional feedback. For projects costing more than $100,000 and/or lasting longer than one year, you may submit a brief proposal to our large grant application site.

If you have questions after you've searched our site, please contact our staff by phone or e-mail. We are happy to talk to prospective applicants but cannot review written documents or officially recommend or reject an idea over the phone. We can, however, provide a sense of the questions that reviewers will ask to assist you in deciding whether to prepare an application. We can also guide you to additional resources. We often include blinded reviews of full proposals with letters to the applicant, but due to the large volume of applications we receive, we are unable to provide individual critiques of brief proposals.

Meetings

We conduct invitational meetings designed to bring together key players in the public policy process and in the health care market. These working meetings are designed to foster debate and discussion on policy-relevant topics, highlight HCFO-funded research projects, and raise new issues worthy of further exploration.

Dissemination

To connect decision makers with study findings, work in progress, and experts in the field, HCFO disseminates information through this site and our publications. Learn about what's new with the HCFO program and our grantees in our e-newsletter. Check out our hot topics to learn how the work of our grantees helps to inform current policy issues. Our grantee spotlight describes biographical information, research interests and studies conducted by HCFO grantees.

Our publications include a newsletter and findings briefs and issue briefs, which feature results from our grantees' studies and which cover topics of particular significance to public and private decision makers.

RWJF Information on HCFO

On the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s website, you will find information about HCFO, including a brief history of the program, its design and evolution, and the proposal solicitation process. In addition, this report on the program presents the results and findings of a selection of HCFO projects that have been completed since 1996.