Emergency Care Research Institute

Emergency Care Research Institute, doing business as Ecri, a nonprofit healthcare research organization headquartered in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, serves federal agencies as a prime contractor (100% of recent awards) providing medical device evaluations, healthcare quality and safety research, evidence synthesis, and clinical evidence assessment services without reliance on set-asides. Registered in SAM.gov since 2002, Ecri operates a single named subsidiary, The Just Culture Company LLC, and competes in full-and-open procurements across civilian healthcare, defense health, and veterans' health customer bases.

Customer concentration is heavily skewed toward healthcare research and quality agencies. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) anchors 51% of combined potential value across recent awards ($103.8 million across 42 awards), followed by the Defense Health Agency ($18.7 million across 56 awards), the Department of the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery ($5.6 million across 27 awards), the Department of the Army Medical Command ($2.9 million across 39 awards), and the Indian Health Service ($2.1 million across 41 awards). These five agencies represent 66% of combined potential value. Ecri serves 61 distinct customer agencies across the federal health enterprise, but AHRQ's dominance reflects its role as the anchor customer for Ecri's core evidence-synthesis mission.

Ecri holds two primary indefinite delivery vehicles anchoring its work stream. The Evidence-based Practice Centers VII (EPC VII) IDIQ with AHRQ, awarded July 2025 with a $90 million ceiling and period of performance through June 30, 2030, is a multiple-award vehicle under which Ecri has received two substantive delivery orders totaling $700,000: a $250,000 firm fixed-price technical brief on Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) research mapping (completion June 29, 2026) and a $450,000 time-and-materials delivery order for EPC VII methods and dissemination work (completion September 29, 2030). The earlier Evidence-based Practice Centers VI (EPC VI) IDIQ generated 10 task orders worth $3.6 million combined potential value for systematic reviews and technology assessments. Beyond AHRQ, Ecri places work under an Indefinite Delivery Contract H9400205D0003 (41 task orders, $7.7 million combined potential value, source does not identify issuing agency) and the GSA Multiple Award Schedule (8 task orders, $29.9 million combined potential value). Recent representative prime awards include a $11.088 million delivery order from an unnamed civilian federal headquarters for clinical risk management planning and health workforce development services (completion September 26, 2030); a $952,734 definitive contract from the Defense Health Agency for medical data subscription services running through December 27, 2029; a $233,775 purchase order from Veterans Integrated Service Network 22 for medical equipment predictive replacement planning (completion February 28, 2027); and a $150,000 subscription purchase order from Veterans Integrated Service Network 20 for clinical evidence assessment services running through August 31, 2030.

Ecri's capability portfolio is concrete and specialized. The vendor delivers medical device evaluations and risk assessments through branded products (ECRI Evaluation Plus, Device Evaluation Plus, CAPITAL Guide, Biomedical Guide, Vendor Guide Plus) that furnish VA facilities, Army medical commands, and Defense Health Agency components with standardized medical equipment research, pricing data, hazard investigations, and manufacturer directories. Ecri conducts evidence synthesis work for AHRQ under the EPC program, producing systematic reviews, scoping reviews, rapid reviews, living reviews, and qualitative evidence syntheses on clinical topics ranging from non-ventilator-associated pneumonia prevention to behavioral migraine interventions. As a Patient Safety Organization, Ecri performs root cause analyses and clinical risk management consulting for federal agencies including the Peace Corps and HHS. The vendor maintains proprietary databases and maintains the Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System (UMDNS) vocabulary under a sole-source contract with the National Library of Medicine for Health Services Research and Vocabulary Support (completion January 31, 2027, $492,466 total value).

Activity has declined modestly over the past five years—from 12 awards in 2022 to 5 in 2024, with 7 awards in 2025 and 1 award (dated March 1, 2026) in the most recent fiscal-year cohort. Five awards (combined potential value $3.9 million) carry ultimate completion dates within the next twenty-four months and face recompete exposure. Combined obligated dollars across all awards total $172.9 million (85% of combined potential value of $203.3 million), indicating strong execution against ceiling values. SCI-reported invoicing on federal service contracts above the $150,000 threshold shows $11.5 million across FY2022–FY2024 (FY2022: $4.4 million; FY2023: $3.1 million; FY2024: $4 million), delivering between 7.4 and 18.7 FTEs in SCI-reportable work annually. On those federal service contracts captured in SCI, median government-paid rates ran around $147.46/hr, with senior labor pricing through $543.07/hr. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors performed 0% of total contractor hours—Ecri builds its own delivery teams rather than subcontracting. The vendor subcontracts to others only minimally; the source identifies a single sub-award (June 24, 2024) as a named subcontractor to Johns Hopkins University for a horizon-scan component of AHRQ's Making Healthcare Safer IV program.

GSA Schedule labor categories span patient safety, risk management, and quality roles from administrative coordinator ($94.44/hr) through senior analyst ($250.24/hr) and manager ($292.60/hr), with no security-cleared positions offered. Work is performed primarily at Ecri's Plymouth Meeting headquarters, with subordinate delivery locations in Doylestown (administrative), Prescott, Arizona (VHA program support), Vancouver, Washington (Veterans Integrated Service Network 20), Frederick, Maryland (Defense Health Agency), and Bethesda (NIH Clinical Center). Ecri operates in full-and-open competitive space across all customer agencies without SBA set-aside designations; its market position rests on proprietary research infrastructure, UMDNS copyright ownership, established relationships with civilian health research agencies, and demonstrated expertise in evidence synthesis and medical device assessment that competitors cannot easily replicate.