DoD Orthotics and Prosthetics Outcomes, Clinical Trial Award | W81XWH 18 OPORP CTA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 18 OPORP CTA

The DoD Orthotics and Prosthetics Outcomes, Clinical Trial Award (FY18 OPORP CTA; Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH 18 OPORP CTA) is a Department of Defense research funding opportunity created to support clinical trials that directly compare currently available orthotic and prosthetic device options and determine which devices, and which specific device characteristics, lead to the best real-world patient outcomes. The central goal is to build outcomes-focused evidence that can be used in everyday clinical decision-making, helping providers choose and optimize orthotic and prosthetic care for people with limb loss and/or limb impairment. Rather than emphasizing engineering novelty, this award is aimed at producing practical, clinically usable findings that strengthen evidence-based practice and improve the quality of care and functional results for patients.

A defining feature of this program is its focus on patient-centric outcomes that matter to Service members and Veterans, such as function, mobility, comfort, durability in demanding environments, quality of life, participation in work and community life, and other meaningful measures of daily performance and wellbeing. The intent is for funded trials to answer the kinds of questions clinicians and patients routinely face: which device category or configuration is most likely to improve outcomes for a given patient profile, and which device features actually make a measurable difference. While the primary relevance is to military and Veteran populations, the program also expects that the findings will translate to civilian care and benefit the broader public.

The FY18 OPORP CTA was offered for the first time in fiscal year 2018 and is positioned as an outcomes-based best practices initiative. As written, the opportunity explicitly does not support development of new technologies or incremental improvements to existing technologies. Instead, it supports rigorous evaluation of options that are already available, with an emphasis on generating clear comparative evidence that can guide selection, fitting, and long-term management. In other words, this mechanism is about testing what is already on the market or in use and determining what works best, for whom, and under what conditions.

The solicitation strongly encourages multidisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration, reflecting how orthotics and prosthetics care intersects clinical medicine, rehabilitation, biomechanics, human performance, and device manufacturing. Proposed teams are encouraged to involve partners across academia, industry, the military Services, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other federal agencies. The underlying message is that the strongest trials will likely come from coordinated efforts that can recruit relevant patient populations, apply robust clinical trial methods, and ensure the results are credible and ready to inform clinical practice.

Administratively, this is a discretionary federal funding opportunity offered by the Department of Defense (Department of the Army, USAMRAA) under the research and development category (Science and Technology and other R&D), CFDA number 12.420. The funding instrument types include grants and cooperative agreements. Eligibility is listed as unrestricted, meaning it is broadly open to many entity types unless additional eligibility language in the full announcement narrows it further. The opportunity was posted June 15, 2018, with an original closing date of October 25, 2018, and it anticipated making about four awards. The listed award ceiling is shown as 0 in the source data, which typically indicates the ceiling was not specified in that field and would need to be confirmed in the full program announcement or associated funding tables.

Overall, the OPORP CTA is designed to produce high-value clinical trial evidence that helps orthotics and prosthetics providers move beyond preference or anecdote and toward data-driven, outcomes-optimized care, especially for Service members and Veterans living with limb loss or limb impairment, while also improving guidance for the wider patient community.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Orthotics and Prosthetics Outcomes, Clinical Trial Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 15, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 25, 2018. (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 4 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for W81XWH 18 OPORP CTA

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