More than 60 leading patient advocacy and disability groups signed onto the Partnership to Improve Patient Care’s (PIPC) outreach letter to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review’s (ICER) new Vice President for Patient Engagement Yvette Venable. The undersigned groups applauded the creation of this new position, and look forward to working with Ms. Venable to ensure that ICER develops and implements a robust patient engagement framework. “As organizations that have worked across the spectrum of health care – including life sciences innovation, payer decision-making and value assessment – with missions to improve the quality of life for patients and people with disabilities, we hope that you will engage with us and take advantage of our real-world patient engagement experiences and lessons learned,” the letter states. “Do not hesitate to reach out to us and to the experts in this field described above as you consider patient engagement frameworks that may be fit for use within ICER.”

​In a letter to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) Chairman Tony Coelho offered input on the next 10 years of PCORI. Chairman Coelho framed PIPC’s recommendations around three core principles: relevance, timeliness, and trust. Specifically, he encouraged PCORI to: (1) create a national agenda for research priorities; (2) expand collection of and access to patient-centered outcomes; (3) advance use of patient-centered outcomes in value assessment; and (4) promote patient-centered methodologies. “This is a crucial moment to build on PCORI’s success for another 10 years,” wrote Chairman Coelho. “Success, we believe, will entail effectively connecting PCORI and its research strengths to the current, pressing needs of our health care system and the patients and caregivers it serves.