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An NIH study of treatments for high blood pressure, called the ALLHAT trial, shows some of the strengths and limitations of comparative effectiveness research to improve patient care. More...

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PIPC chairman delivers speech to specialty docs on importance of patient centered CER

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Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) chairman, Tony Coelho, recently delivered a speech on patient centered comparative effectiveness research (CER) in front of fifty specialty doctors from around the country, among others, at the Alliance for Specialty Medicine’s (ASM) “Capitol Hill Advocacy Conference.” The conference took place just a day before the specialty doctors met w

Tony Coelho's recent speech on patient centered CER

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Below: PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho's recent speech on patient centered CER. The speech was delivered on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at the Alliance for Specialty Medicine's “Capitol Hill Advocacy Conference,” in Washington, D.C.

Lack of support for "evidence-based health care"— don't blame the patient

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A new Health Affairs article concludes, based on focus groups and interviews, that "consumers will revolt if evidence-based efforts are perceived as rationing or as a way to deny them needed treatment."

You don't need to look any further than public reaction to the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force's updated recommendations on mammography screening to see the proof of this.
 
How should policy-makers react? Should they conclude that consumers, and even more so, patients, cannot be relied on to make evidence-based decisions, and therefore these decisions need to be made for them? Or should they conclude that evidence-based models of medical care and health delivery need to be carefully constructed so they have the trust and support of patients and consumers?

Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute will help find health care outcomes that WAPO op-ed writers seek

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On Saturday, May 22, The Washington Post published my letter to the editor on the opportunity we have in CER to answer the full range of questions that are important to improving patient care and health care quality. The letter responded to a commentary from physicians Jim Yong Kim and James N. Weinstein, who called for a research program to help us learn about what works best in health care delivery and patient management.  

This is just one of the important strengths of the comparative effectiveness research (CER) provisions of the healthcare reform law.  

Oncologist believes CER can’t ‘keep pace with advances in medicine’—shouldn’t get between doctor and patient

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A recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Dr. Leonard Zwelling, illustrates why treatment decisions must stay between a patient and their doctor and reinforces the importance of the comparative effectiveness research (CER) language included in the recently passed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.


Zwelling, an oncologist, explains the challenges of using CER to set rigid national policy requirements. He highlights how cancer care is continually evolving in that it allows doctors to better address the individual needs of cancer patients whose bodies react to their forms of cancers in different ways than those of other patients:

Building a Patient-Centered CER Program

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With enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the patient and provider communities now for the first time have a blueprint for patient-centered comparative effectiveness research written into law.  

In a recent press release, PIPC outlined the most important CER provisions in the bill.

“Congress worked hard to pass health care reform that included patient-centered CER.  The bill will result in the creation of the Patient-Cent

Differing interpretations on procedure’s worth illustrate that no CER result should be final word

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A recent Wall Street Journal article about the use of stent procedures in the medical community and the reaction to it by blogger Burt Cohen, offers another illustration of the complexities of comparative research, and again shows why results should be used to inform doctors and patients, but not to impose broad “one size fits all” prescriptions that do not reflect the complexities of the science or the differences in individual patients.

Researcher knows common flaws in CER studies, dangers of result's misuse

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A recent article by Jerome Groopman, M.D, provides some valuable, first-hand insight as to what can go wrong when policy makers “give teeth” to comparative effectiveness research (CER) studies by translating results into “best practices.” Groopman’s understanding of the limitations of CER and the complexities of delivery high quality care to each patient, lead him to caution against blunt application of CER in ways that do not give physicians the ability to deviat

PIPC urges inclusion of Senate CER provision in final reform legislation

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Agree or disagree with the recent changes to mammography guidelines by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), one thing is clear – two sets of highly qualified experts can come to very different conclusions when looking at the same evidence. This holds big implications for provisions of health care reform like comparative effectiveness research (CER).

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