1. PIPC: Chairman Coelho Participates in HTAi Conference: click here to view the agenda.
2. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute: 2013 Annual Report, click here to view the report.
3. PIPC Member Responds to PCORI’s “PCORnet: An Update on Our Blueprint for Transforming Health Research,” click here for the original post and subsequent responses.
4. Psychiatric Times: Assessing and Enhancing the Effectiveness of Antidepressants, click here for the article (free registration required).
5. AJMC: Survey Reveals that Value-Based Reimbursement is on the Rise, click here to view the article.
6. HIStalk Interviews Aaron Sorensen, Director of Informatics, Temple University School of Medicine, click here to view the interview.
7. PhRMA Blog: Patient Reported Outcomes As a Means to Reaching Effective Quality Measurement, click here to view the post.
PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho served on a panel of experts on June 16, 2014 at the Health Technology Assessment International Conference in Washington, DC at a session entitled “Executing a Global Patient-Centered Research Agenda: Lessons Learned from Establishing PCORI.” Other participants included PCORI’s Chief Officer for Engagement, Jean Slutsky, and the Executive Director of the National Health Council, Marc Boutin, as well as Durhane Wong-Rieger, a patient advocate from Canada. Panelists had the opportunity to discuss lessons learned from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) for the development of meaningful patient engagement strategies worldwide. Chairman Coelho praised the progress of PCORI, while also emphasizing there is more to be done to ensure patient engagement is meaningful both in PCORI’s research and across our health system. As other countries are looking to PCORI for lessons learned, panelists recognized the need to continue pushing PCORI to change the culture of research so that it is truly patient-centered and values patient engagement.
2. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute: 2013 Annual Report
PCORI released their annual report for 2013 recently. The executive summary touts the organization’s vision for the future of research. “We are now positioned to ramp up dramatically our investment in patient-centered CER designed to produce information that can change practice and improve outcomes, especially in high-burden diseases and conditions. We will seek to advance our vision of patientcentered research across the research community by promoting the broad use of our methodology standards and showing the value of our approach to engaging patients and others throughout the research process. We will continue to support development of the infrastructure needed to ensure that patient-centered CER can be conducted more effectively and efficiently. We will start to see the results of our initial funded studies, which focused on assessing the best ways to do this kind of work. And we will establish the framework for what we know must be a comprehensive plan to promote the dissemination and uptake of the results of our primary CER studies.” Click here to view the report.
3. PIPC Member Responds to PCORI’s “PCORnet: An Update on Our Blueprint for Transforming Health Research”
John Lewis of the Association of Clinical Research Organizations, a PIPC Steering Committee member, recently commented on a PCORI blog regarding PCORnet. Mr. Lewis stated, “[ACRO] strongly supports PCORI’s mission to conduct “patient-centered” research as our members each year conduct thousands of studies around the globe with data integrity and patient safety the utmost priorities. But we are troubled by several aspects of PCORnet. Notably, in this blog post Ms. Greene trumpets “best practices” and then goes on to discuss two areas of PCORnet development that violate all laws of best data practices. First, creating a “common data model” that will apparently only be useful within PCORnet is both shortsighted and inefficient. Why wouldn’t PCORI work with an organization such as the Clinical Data Interchange Standard Consortium (CDISC), which has broad support from the research community, industry and the FDA, to create universal standards? Similarly, the idea of creating 29 separate data security and privacy protection policies, one for each CDRN and PPRN, is counterproductive and wasteful.” PCORI responded to his concerns stating, "We believe PCORnet will drive change in the research process, not only through semantic interoperability of our data but through sociocultural interoperability—the meaningful interaction of patients, researchers, clinicians and other healthcare stakeholders. Indeed, we’re confident that co-creating PCORnet with our partners will help to drive the very change that Mr. Lewis and others rightly seek.” To view the original article, Mr. Lewis’s full response, and PCORI’s rebuttal, click here.
4. Psychiatric Times: Assessing and Enhancing the Effectiveness of Antidepressants
Dr. Steve Balt of Psychiatric Times reported recently about how comparative effectiveness research relates to new findings about antidepressants and their success. “The general consensus is that despite their different mechanisms of action, all current antidepressants seem to have more or less the same effect. The functional equivalency of antidepressants is highlighted in practice guidelines and, understandably, serves as justification for restricted formulary access to more expensive agents.1 As a result, most psychiatrists choose antidepressants not on the basis of efficacy, but rather on the basis of insurance coverage, adverse-effect profiles, or particular clinical features of depression (eg, melancholic, atypical, anxious features), for which some differences in efficacy do exist.” Click here for the article (free registration required).
5. AJMC: Survey Reveals that Value-Based Reimbursement is on the Rise
Writing for The American Journal of Managed Care, Katie Sullivan reported last week on the growing trend of value-based insurance. “What is the state of value-based insurance design so far for 2014? According to a survey commissioned by McKesson and conducted by ORC International, pay-for-performance (P4P) is on the rise...‘To remain relevant and competitive, payers, hospitals, health systems, and clinicians must respond now to integrate value-based models into their existing systems,’ said the report.” Click here to view the article.
6. HIStalk Interviews Aaron Sorensen, Director of Informatics, Temple University School of Medicine
PCORnet was touted by Aaron Sorensen in interview last week with HIStalk.com. “[Aaron Sorensen:] Although they have grants that fund all different kind of things, just like the NIH does, I believe the crown jewel within the PCORI portfolio is PCORnet. It has 29 funded groups, some of which focus more on general health system patient populations, whereas others are more focused on particular patient groups with specific diseases.” Click here to view the interview.
7. PhRMA Blog: Patient Reported Outcomes As a Means to Reaching Effective Quality Measurement
Last week, Randy Burkholder penned a post for PhRMA’s Catalyst Blog commenting that, “[w]e can't advance patient-centered care if we aren't measuring and incentivizing what matters to patients. We have begun to see this shift in the premarket arena via patient-focused drug development and in comparative effectiveness research at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. It's time for the same shift to occur in provider value-based payment.” Click here to view the post.