On Jul. 23, 1997, Richard D. Klausner, M.D., director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) announced that as part of a broader reorganization of NCI, the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control (DCPC) was split into 2 new divisions: the Division of Cancer Prevention and the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS).

Several years later, applied research was elevated to become its own program within DCCPS, the Applied Research Program (ARP). Within ARP, there was for the first time a branch focused on healthcare delivery research—the Health Services and Economics Branch (HSEB). Another branch, the Outcomes Research Branch, was also added to expand the focus of the program to better understand and improve patient experiences, with emphasis on measuring health-related quality of life, patient perceptions of care, and economic burden. The Health Services and Economics and Outcomes Research branches were meant to be complementary, bringing together clinical, economic, and healthcare delivery questions.

Klausner said that creation of this new division continued the work at NCI to successfully separate the intramural and extramural divisions, a step recommended in 1995 by the Bishop-Calabresi Committee, a group of outside experts that reviewed NCI’s intramural program from top to bottom.