Partnership to Improve Patient Care

Speaking at the Partnership to Improve Patient Care's (PIPC) forum on CER July 22, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) highlighted the promise of the health reform law in delivering patient-centered CER and pledged "diligent oversight" to ensure it fulfills this promise in implementation. In his first speech on comparative effectiveness research since with Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law, Baucus said: "The law is clear:  The purpose of the Institute is solely to generate useful information. By evaluating and comparing what works best, patients and providers can make better-informed decisions about care. Thus the Institute will be characterized by strong patient representation, a focus on patient outcomes, transparency, and a focused scope.  All these features put the needs of patients first."
 
Baucus added that "the doctor-patient relationship is sacred. The research will not change that relationship in any way. Rather, it will serve to strengthen it." The Senate Finance Committee Chairman further explained that the Institute "will look at a range of health care delivery issues" and "will focus on clinical outcomes in the real world" that provide "information that doctors and patients find useful when making decisions about care."  
 
Baucus stressed the importance of following through with strong implementation of the law's CER provisions, and pledged to conduct diligent oversight to this end. "The designs of the new health reform law and the new Institute are sound.  But as well designed as they are, they both need good implementation.  We will exercise diligent oversight authority over the new law and the new Institute." 

In a PIPC press release on the forum, Baucus added: "I'm glad to see groups like the Partnership to Improve Patient Care speaking out on behalf of patients, and I intend to stand with them to make sure health care research is always transparent and patient-focused."
 
Baucus was joined at the event by a panel of leaders representing patients, consumers, people with disabilities, and physicians, including: Marc Boutin, Executive Vice President and COO of the National Health Council; Joyce Dubow, Senior Health Care Reform Director, Office of Policy & Strategy for AARP; Andy Imparato, President and CEO of American Association of People with Disabilities; Dr. Jack Lewin, CEO of American College of Cardiology; Jennifer M. Luray, Senior Vice President for Susan G. Komen for the Cure Advocacy Alliance; Dr. Gary Puckrein, President and CEO of the National Minority Quality Forum, and Dr. Robert Zwolak, Professor of Vascular Surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
 
Click here to view Sen. Baucus' speech, my opening remarks, and other materials that were distributed to guests at the PIPC Forum.