In This Week’s Issue:
1. PIPC Steering Member, Alliance for Aging Research, Blog:  Turning a Blind Eye on Patients, click here to view the post.
2. Inside Health Policy: All Sides Target Patients As Debate Rages Over Drug Innovation, Prices, click here to view the article.
3. PCORI, CQ HealthBeat, Bloomberg Comment On Annual Survey Of Comparative Effectiveness Research, click here to view the PCORI post, here to view the CQ HealthBeatarticle (subscription required), and here to view the Bloomberg article (subscription required).
4. PCORI Blog: New Funding Announcement Advances Pragmatic Studies Initiative, click here to view the post.
5. Healthcare Informatics: While Big Data Promises Big Changes in Health Care, Hurdles Remain, click here to view the article.
6. Harvard School of Public Health: Prevention in Public Health: What Works? Click here to view the full review.
7. PCORI Blog: Planning for Dissemination and Use of Results from PCORI-Funded Research, click here to view the post.
8. Wall Street Journal: The Bureaucrat Sitting on Your Doctor's Shoulder, click here to view the article.
9. The Hill, Politico: AHIP Comments on PCORI, click here to view The Hill article, and here to view the Politico Pro article (subscription required).
10. The Pink Sheet Daily: Part D Data-Sharing Expansion Stops Short Of Allowing Commercial Uses, click here to view the full article, subscription required).
11. Bloomberg: Most Doctors Prescribe Antibiotics That Don't Work, click here to view the article.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) released a report today claiming that the use of Lucentis for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) wastes $1 billion a year. If you speak with anyone who has watched a loved one lose their vision to AMD, you would not think that proper treatment of this disease is a “waste.” AMD is a progressive eye disease that predominantly affects older people. In my grandfather’s case, it robbed him of his ability to drive a car and also took away simple joys that kept him connected to the world like reading the newspaper, watching the nightly news and Turner Classic Movies, and even engaging in coffee conversations around the dinner table.

In This Week’s Issue:
1. PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho Quoted In News On Disabilities, click here to view the article.
2. PCORI: Research Prioritization Topic Briefs, click here to view the paper.
3. PCORI Blog: The Best of Intentions: PCORI Invites Full Proposals Under First Round of Pragmatic Studies Initiative, click here to view the post.
4. AcademyHealth: Value-Based Insurance Design Can Increase Value Without Saving Money, click here to view the article.  
5. Deloitte Insights: What It Takes to Compete on Value, Not Volume, click here to view the article.
6. NYT: Looking for the Final Word on Treatment, click here to view the article.

In a recent article  published in the HeraldNet, PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho was quoted regarding changes to regulations made by the Department of Labor.  New rules implementing a section of the federal Rehabilitation Act now prohibits discrimination on the basis of disabilities. "Because of the new regulations, up to 465,000 people living with a disability may have a chance at gaining employment within the next year, according to Tony Coelho, the primary sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act and former California congressman. The act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability, was enacted by Congress in 1990.'In my view, it’s a real game-changer,' Coelho said. 'For those of us with disabilities, a job is what’s critical.'"

In This Week’s Issue:
1. PCORI: Mental Health Care: Information and Access, click here to view the post.
2. Health Affairs: Lessons From Abroad And At Home: How PCORI Can Improve Quality Of Care (And Prove It) By 2019, click here to view the post.
3. PolicyMed: PCORI Looks to Link Millions of Electronic Medical Records by September 2015, click here to view the article.

Today, Sara van Geertruyden, Executive Director of the Partnership for Improved Patient Care (PIPC), addressed the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute's (PCORI) Board of Governors regarding the Patient Engagement Advisory Panel.  Ms. van Geertruyden sits on the advisory panel and provided the board with insight into their recent roundtable regarding PCORI’s development of an Evaluation Roundtable.

In This Week’s Issue:
1. PIPC Executive Director Attends PCORI Patient Engagement Advisory Panel Meeting, click here to access the slides, presentations, and agenda.
2. PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho: Why Evaluating "Patient-Centeredness" Really Matters, click here to view the post.
3. PCORI Searches for Scientific Program Officers, click here to view the release.
4. Modern Healthcare: Coordinated Care Alone May Not Yield ROI, ACPE Told, click here to view the article (subscription required.)
5. The Brookings Institution: Medical Devices and Patient Safety: A Promising Path Forward, click here to view the article.
6. RWJF: How Can Health Systems Effectively Serve Minority Communities? Use Electronic Health Records to Discover How to Improve Outcomes, click here to view the blog.
7. The Health Care Blog: 10 Ways Innovation Could Help Cure the U.S. Health Spending Problem, click here to view the blog.
8. Health Data Management: Turning the Battleship Toward Engagement, click here to view the article.