Partnership to Improve Patient Care

PCORI released a draft of their National Priorities for Research and Research Agenda for public comment. The PCORI Board, which is responsible for funding research, is asking for a 55 day public comment period to discuss and solicit feedback from patients, caregivers, professionals, and the general public on the research priorities.

In the draft, PCORI prioritized five broad research areas:

•    Assessment of Options for Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment
•    Improving Health Care Systems;
•    Communication and Dissemination Research;
•    Addressing Disparities; and
•    Accelerating Patient-Centered Outcomes Research and Methodological Research.

According to Joe Selby, PCORI Executive Director, “these priorities and agenda give a framework to and identify the broad questions that must be addressed so that patients can make better and more personalized decisions in partnership with their clinicians across all areas of health.”
While these focus areas are very important to the success of CER, they are too broad to address the true concerns of patients. For example, PCORI not choosing to specify or prioritize specific conditions or diseases for research. What the Board determined does not only distract from the overall patient-centered goal, it fails to fully define several aspects of the process.