1. Please Join Us at the PIPC Forum on Nov. 19! Click here to view the invitation.
2. PIPC Encourages PCORI to Prioritize Patient-Centered Outcomes in Hep C Discussion, click here to view the letter.
3. PIPC Members Participate in PCORI Teleconference on Peer Review Process,” click here to view the presentation slides
4. PCORI: Proving the Concept: Moving Ahead with PCORnet's First Clinical Trial, click here?to view the blog post.
5. Health Affairs: A Simple Case Of Chest Pain: Sensitizing Doctors To Patients With Disabilities, click here to view the article.
6. CQ Health Beat: Drug Industry Group Recommends Quality Measures for ACOs, click here to view the article (subscription required).
7. Wall Street Journal: Accountable Care Organizations Are the Better Future, click here to view the article.
8. The Morning Consult: The Affordable Care Act: Is It Working as Intended? Click here to view the article.
9. AMA Wire: Improve Quality, Avoid Penalties Using Clinical Data Registries, click here to view the post.
PIPC is pleased to be holding the 5th Annual PIPC Forum on Nov. 19, 2014 at the Reserve Officers Association in Washington, DC from 12pm-2pm. We are looking forward to input from policymakers on Capitol Hill on the development of alternative payment models, and a moderated discussion by PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho with a panel of experts on how to build a patient-centered health system. Invited panelists include Tanisha Carino with Avalere, Dr. Kavita Patel with Brookings Institute, Ms. Sally Okun with PatientsLikeMe, Ms. Sue Sheridan with PCORI, and Dr. Kristin Carman with AIR. We will discuss the infrastructure needed to make patient-centeredness a reality, from data networks to quality and patient-centered outcome measures - from tools for educating patients to conducting shared decision-making. We look forward to seeing you there! Please RSVP to [email protected]. Click here to view the invite.
2. PIPC Encourages PCORI to Prioritize Patient-Centered Outcomes in Hep C Discussion
The Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) was joined by several hepatitis C patients and advocates today in sending a letter to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) applauding PCORI for convening stakeholders to prioritize potential hepatitis C research questions, while providing guidance on how to ensure the prioritized questions are truly patient-centered. The letter stated, "It was clearly articulated by patients and providers at the workshop that the most important patient-centered outcome in the case of hepatitis C is a cure for every patient diagnosed with this infectious disease. To be truly patient-centered, we feel strongly that PCORI’s prioritization process should capture the research questions that are best suited to help patients achieve this outcome - a cure for all patients.” PIPC and hepatitis C patients urged PCORI to give weight to the questions that were prioritized by patients, and to allow the public to comment on the draft priorities as is required by PCORI's statute. Click here to view.
Additionally, early last week, in response to the recent hepatitis C meeting, Executive Director Joe Selby released a blog post saying, "Amid a range of opinions on how to position and use these new, interferon-free, oral therapies for HCV infection, PCORI is well positioned—as an independent, nonprofit research funder—to convene a broad range of stakeholders to identify some of the questions that matter most to patients and their families. […] Although we know there are questions about the cost of the new therapies, that wasn’t our focus. In fact, we don’t study cost effectiveness. Instead, we look at comparative clinical questions about what works and what doesn’t work in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. We consider a broader range of outcomes, including longer-term outcomes, than typically required for approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Our premise is that more, reliable information is always better than less. Replacing assumptions with objective evidence enhances discussions about all treatment-related issues." Click here to view the blog post.
3. PIPC Members Participate in PCORI Teleconference on Peer Review Process
PCORI hosted a teleconference/webinar to describe its proposed process for peer review and public release of its primary research findings. Attendees included PIPC members, Mr. Andrew Sperling with the National Alliance on Mental Illness and Mr. Randy Burkholder with PhRMA, as well as Mr. Marc Boutin with the National Health Council and others. PCORI’s public comment period on the peer review process ends on November 7. Click here to view the presentation slides.
4. PCORI: Proving the Concept: Moving Ahead with PCORnet's First Clinical Trial?
Writing together for the PCORI blog, Science Program Director Rachael Fleurence and Program Associate Jason Rotter said “We look at this first randomized trial as a chance to evaluate and refine PCORnet's data and clinical trials infrastructure. Investigators must use efficient recruitment strategies to ensure broad representation from the patient community in the trial. [...]To be successful, the study also must engage patients, clinicians, and health system leaders throughout the research process to capture relevant patient-centered outcomes from real-world clinical settings and optimize data collection across networks.” Click here?to view the blog post.
5. Health Affairs: A Simple Case Of Chest Pain: Sensitizing Doctors To Patients With Disabilities
PCORI Patient Engagement Advisory Panel Member Dr. Leana Wen contributed a story to Health Affairs describing her experience as a doctor who stutters confronting the stigma against patients—and providers—with disabilities. While medical school curricula are replete with lectures on “one-in-a-million” diseases, little attention is devoted to teaching future doctors how to care for people with speech disorders or other disabilities. A 2005 special report commissioned by the Special Olympics found that only 25 percent of medical schools included in their curricula any content regarding people with disabilities. A 2012 Academic Medicine article by Laurie Woodward and colleagues found little improvement, with accreditation councils still not requiring clinicians to have knowledge of caring for people with disabilities. Click here to view the article.
6. CQ Health Beat: Drug Industry Group Recommends Quality Measures for ACOs
Last week, CQ HealthBeat reported, “The National Pharmaceutical Council […] released a 124-page report that includes recommendations for improving how quality is measured in accountable care organizations that give providers incentives to coordinate patients' care. The group wants to devote more measures assessing patients' outcomes, along with cross-cutting measures to assess care across different conditions, settings and time. It also called for patient-reported measurements on issues such as quality of life. Click here to view the article (subscription required).
7. Wall Street Journal: Accountable Care Organizations Are the Better Future
Last week, in The Wall Street Journal, “[S]ince the implementation of ACOs, we've seen the lowest per capita health-care spending growth in 50 years, growing at just 1.3% over the three years since 2010. A recent academic study attributes at least some of the slowdown to new care delivery models, such as ACOs, which is why ACOs are also proliferating in the private sector...We need to give ACOs adequate opportunity to affect health-care quality, satisfaction, health and costs before we bury them using selective information...Joe Damore...Premier, Inc.” Click here to view the article.
8. The Morning Consult: The Affordable Care Act: Is It Working as Intended?
Published last week in The Morning Consult, Robert W. Dubois commented, “The ACA aims to influence the trajectory of over one sixth of the US economy. As this extensive change occurs, many new questions will emerge and it is critical that we are able to conduct objective, data-driven research on the impact of the law and its policies. Organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) should fund such assessments and researchers must then rigorously conduct the studies, and policymakers review the ensuing evidence to understand whether the ACA is achieving the desired intended consequences, and hopefully avoiding some of the most worrisome unintended ones.” Click here to view the article.
9. AMA Wire: Improve Quality, Avoid Penalties Using Clinical Data Registries
Reported last week in the AMA Wire, “In a [National Quality Registry Network] registry landscape survey of 32 registries, more than three-quarters of the registries collected national-level data related to a specific disease or condition. Most registry stewards use the data for performance improvement and comparative effectiveness research. ‘Well designed and managed clinical data registries can provide physicians with critical information to help them provide quality care to their individual patients,’ the report said.” Click here to view the post.