Report Outlines Patient Centered Research Priorities
Today the HHS Office of Secretary recommendations for how $400 million in funds for patient-centered research will be spent by Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER). Mandated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act this report was made to the help provide best information possible to the doctors and patients to make decisions about health care, and help the HHS Secretary and lawmakers improve quality care for patients.
The Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research report also catalogues current federal activities on CER, which had not been previously inventoried. The new report is available at www.hhs.gov/recovery/programs/cer.
“This essential patient centered research will help give patients and doctors more information so they can make the best decisions,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “The council has produced an important tool that will help us better target our investments in this vital area of health care research. I was impressed by the amount of public input that was incorporated into their report; especially the focus on funding research for populations who have been left behind or left out.”
The task of identifying key areas of comparative effectiveness research where the funding could make the greatest impact to improve health outcomes for out nation was given to the council by congress. Public input from hundreds of diverse stakeholders was heard by the council along with many perspectives influenced the entire report. Criteria for determining which research projects should be a priority, a definition of CER, and framework to identify future priorities and gaps all were included in the report.
The office of Secretary funds was focused on by the council for the unique role they could play in leveraging and complementing funding which is allocated to the Agency for National Institutes of Health, Health care Research and and Quality, along with other government agencies. the following recommendations include:
- Making better investments on how information is disseminated along with Doctors and patients needing to have the information shared with them on the results of comparative effectiveness research
- Racial and ethnic minorities, people with multiple chronic condition’s, children, people with disabilities, and the elderly is the priority populations where the research should focus on the needs of.
- Research should be in specific high impact health arenas like surgical procedures, behavioral interventions and preventions and medical and assistive devices
- Data infrastructures such as development of distributed electronic data networks, linking current data sources to enable CER questions, and partnerships with the private sector is where the investments should be made.
Secretary Seblius’ submission of and operation plan for the combined $1.1 billion allocated for patient-centered research, which includes the $400 million allocated to the Office of the Secretary at HHS will help be informed by the councils report.
