Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic, doing business as Dartmouth-Hitchcock Obligated Group, is a non-profit academic medical center headquartered in Lebanon, New Hampshire, that receives and executes federal research grants and clinical trial contracts as both prime recipient and subrecipient, with a footprint dominated by National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and complemented by Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense clinical service agreements.

The clinic operates as a grant-funded research institution rather than a federal contractor seeking competitive procurements. Of 349 awards in the recent source record spanning 2022–2026, 128 are prime awards (37%) and 221 are sub-awards (63%), reflecting deep integration into the NIH research ecosystem and academic medical center collaborative networks. The clinic does not pursue set-aside categories; all work is awarded on full-and-open or direct-award basis. Recent prime contract activity is concentrated in VA clinical services: a $200 thousand firm-fixed-price definitive contract awarded September 2026 for graduate student support through Veterans Integrated Service Network 1 (VISN 1); a $1.591 million sole-source purchase order for HOBSCOTCH (Home-Based Self-Management & Cognitive Training) Program Services for veterans with epilepsy, delivered nationally via secure telehealth through September 2031; an $85 thousand purchase order for VA radiation oncology data collection; and a $230 thousand deep brain stimulation research study for PTSD and traumatic brain injury conducted jointly with the White River Junction VA Healthcare System and Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital.

The clinic's primary customer concentration sits with the National Institutes of Health, which accounts for 161 of the top awards by count. The National Cancer Institute leads with 61 awards, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases with 43 awards, and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences with 21 awards. Recent NIH project grants span specialized clinical research: a $633 thousand Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research award for advanced imaging in laser interstitial thermal therapy for spinal metastases; a $443 thousand Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research grant investigating the skin mycobiome in atopic dermatitis; a $2.379 million Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) award to establish the Center for Aging with Serious Illness; and a $796 thousand Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases Research grant examining bile acid-dependent intestinal immune regulation. The clinic also holds a $5.163 million Defense Health Agency Military Medical Research and Development grant for translational research on triple-negative breast cancer targeting the tumor microenvironment, executed with sub-recipients at New York University School of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Activity has grown substantially year over year—26 awards in 2022 to 104 in 2024, followed by 75 in 2025 and 29 through October 2026. Awards with ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months total 32 with combined potential value of $699 thousand, representing modest recompete exposure relative to the clinic's broad grant pipeline.

The clinic subcontracts to larger research institutions and primes. Recent subcontracting roles include participation under Duke University on a UG3/UH3 cooperative agreement investigating spine care; under Johns Hopkins University on a clinical study collaboration; under Stanford University on the Descemet Endothelial Thickness Comparison Trial (DETECT), a multi-center NIH-funded corneal transplant outcomes trial where Dartmouth serves as an Ophthalmology study site; and under Brown University as a co-investigator on Project 3 of a health services research award. The clinic also receives sub-awards from the Trustees of Dartmouth College (its affiliated academic partner) on numerous NIH research projects spanning molecular epidemiology, cystic fibrosis research infrastructure, and translational science initiatives. On the prime contracting side, the clinic subcontracts to Creare LLC for ultrasound imaging expertise and large animal model studies supporting automated needle decompression device development.

SCI-reportable federal service contracts—those above the $150 thousand reporting threshold—show minimal volume: $105 thousand in combined invoiced amounts across FY2022–FY2024, averaging $0.1 to 0.2 FTEs per fiscal year. Government-paid hourly rates on prime service contracts cluster around $137–$152 per hour at the 10th to 90th percentile range, with a median of $142.73 per hour. The clinic reports zero sub-hours share across prime contracts, indicating that service delivery is performed by internal clinical and research staff rather than through subcontracted labor.

The clinic's federal award footprint reflects its identity as a rural academic medical center anchored in research translation and clinical trial execution, with particular strength in NIH-funded biomedical investigation and VA-supported clinical services for veteran populations in the upper Northeast. The organization does not function as a federal contractor competing for task orders on government-wide vehicles or agency schedules; rather, it operates as a grant recipient and clinical research site where federal dollars support investigator-initiated translational science, clinical outcomes research, and patient-centered intervention development aligned with rural healthcare delivery priorities.