Partnership to Improve Patient Care

Last week, PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho sat down with the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association (SCAA) to talk about comparative effectiveness research (CER) and how this research and other aspects of health reform will affect patients.

SCAA – a PIPC member organization – identifies and unites survivors of cardiac arrest, those at risk of sudden cardiac arrest, as well as others who are interested in being advocates on heart-related issues in their communities and beyond.

SCAA’s online forum brought Mr. Coelho and concerned citizens together for a thoughtful exchange concerning the most pressing issues affecting the current health care reform debate.

Here are a couple of highlights:

Q: Does the House version of health care reform legislation address or allocate funds for CER? What about the Senate? And what if one version does but the other does not?

Tony Coelho: Both the House and Senate health care reform bills contain provisions and funding for CER. The Senate version is more patient-oriented by putting patients on the governance board for the independent CER Institute. In addition, it provides necessary patient safeguards to ensure payers will not use this information to deny access to medically beneficial care.

Q: If there ends up being a CER Institute as is proposed in Congress, won’t that compete with the already existing Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ]? And how will it be determined which medical issues receive top priority for additional research/review?

Tony Coelho: An independent CER Institute, through its governance board comprised of public and private stakeholders (including patients), would make the decisions about what topics to study and who should conduct the research/review…The independent CER Institute would not compete with AHRQ, but would ensure decisions about the focus of CER is made by both public and private stakeholders, not government-only.

PIPC would like thank again the folks at SCAA for hosting this online forum with Mr. Coelho.