The Department of Defense has announced the Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2015 will provide $10 million to the Orthotics and Prosthetics Outcomes Research Program to support military-relevant personal assistive technology outcomes research.
The goal of the Orthotics and Prosthetics Outcomes Research Program (OPORP) is to improve the understanding and advance the implementation of the most effective prescriptions for prosthetic and orthotic devices, treatment, rehabilitation and secondary health effect prevention options for patients, clinicians, other caregivers and policymakers, according to a press release.
The OPORP program announcement and general application instructions are anticipated to be posted on www.grants.gov by early May 2015. Pre-application and application deadlines will be available when the program announcement is released.
Applications submitted to the OPORP must address one or more of the following overarching challenges: compare different patient care approaches; include patient-centric outcome assessments; have the potential to generate new knowledge that can be developed into new clinical practice guidelines, and/or new prescription algorithms for prosthetic and orthotic devices; have the potential to develop new technology for improved prosthetic and orthotic devices, therefore improving patient outcomes; or provide information on quality of life, reintegration, and/or return to duty/return to work as it pertains to patients who use a prosthetic or orthotic device due to limb trauma.
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