Partnership to Improve Patient Care

PIPC Submitted Comments to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute this week on the Institute’s proposed definition of Patient-Centered Outcomes Research.

PIPC expressed support for several elements of the proposed definition, which emphasizes the need for the research to focus on questions that patients and their physicians deem most important and the need for individualization and diversity in patient care.

PIPC also urged PCORI to make several key changes to the definition, saying it should focus the definition more clearly on patients and providers as the audience, and clinical outcomes as the endpoint. PIPC also asked PCORI to extend the definition development to enable the Institute’s forthcoming “chief patient officer” to help guide the process.

The comments echoed the statement made at PCORI’s most recent meeting, in Washington, D.C. by Kathleen Teixeira, a PIPC Steering Committee member and the Senior Director of Government Affairs for the American Gastroenterological Association. Teixeira said that she supports a definition of CER that intends to “help patients make informed healthcare decisions” and is “responsive to the expressed needs and preferences of patients and their care providers.”

PIPC also is creating a web page to serve as a public repository of comments submitted to PCORI on the PCOR definition. We want this to give patients, providers and the public ready access to as many of the comments as possible. If you are submitting comments and want them posted, please send them to us at info@improvepatientcare.org.