Partnership to Improve Patient Care

The latest addition of Congressional Quarterly (CQ) features an article on comparative effectiveness research (CER) in which Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) Chairman Tony Coelho weighs in on the issue.

Coelho emphasized the importance of the Patient Centered Outcomes and Research Institute’s (PCORI) Board Of Governors, which will make important decisions related to CER, saying "tell me who gets on the board, and I can tell you what CER looks like" and that the institute is "one of those things people haven't paid attention to, but it could turn out to be one of the most important parts of the health care bill."

He also illustrated important points about the need for underrepresented patient groups to be included in CER trials, explaining that “if you go to a system where you just focus on the averages, people in certain communities would not be considered important. That'd be true of a lot of other communities, like minority communities. That's what's scary."

PIPC will work to advance patient-centered CER in upcoming months by helping monitor the implementation of the recently passed heath care bill’s CER provisions, including the creation of the PCORI board.