NEHI Releases Groundbreaking Guide to Sustaining Innovation Through Comparative Effectiveness Research

April 20, 2009

 

 

Contact:

Jennifer Handt, NEHI

617-225-0857 x206

CAMBRIDGE, MA (April 20, 2009) – As concerns rise over the potential impacts of comparative effectiveness research (CER) on the U.S. health care system, the New England Healthcare Institute (NEHI) today released a first-of-its-kind framework for designing and implementing a federal CER program that will sustain the unique dynamics of innovation in health care.

The framework, contained in a NEHI white paper titled Balancing Act: Comparative Effectiveness Research and Innovation in U.S. Health Care, is a response to fears that a new federal program for comparing health care interventions – and thus winnowing out some interventions even as it promotes others – could stifle the development of new technologies and approaches that are critical to advancing health care and improving outcomes.

The white paper, available at www.nehi.net, reflects NEHI’s findings of a broad consensus on the potential impacts of CER on innovation among the major health care stakeholders consulted for the project. Many questions were raised about the shape and focus of federally sponsored comparative studies after $1.1 billion was included for CER in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. NEHI, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based health policy institute, has 75 member organizations which span the full spectrum of health care, including patients, payers, providers, academia and industry.

Currently, a few federal agencies in the United States conduct CER on a modest scale, but until now there has been no federally funded program promoting the research broadly. The stimulus bill directs the Institute of Medicine to make recommendations on priorities for a federal CER program to Congress by June 30.

“Policymakers should make supporting innovation – which is critical to medical advancements that improve quality of life for patients everywhere – an explicit goal of CER,” said Wendy Everett, president of NEHI. “NEHI has assembled the best recommendations from leaders across health care on how to do just that.”

To sustain innovation, the NEHI white paper recommends that:

• The goal of CER studies should be to identify the relative clinical, not cost, effectiveness of medical interventions.
• The CER research agenda should be broad, encompassing studies of health care delivery and organization in addition to studies of medical technologies such as drugs and devices.
• New methodologies – beyond randomized clinical trials, which do not capture the complexities of medical care – should be created so that CER study results reflect real-world health care delivery.
• CER programs should employ new dissemination methods so that innovations identified as valuable are effectively adopted and used at the point of care.
• The CER process should recognize the variable dynamics of innovation by allowing reasonable access to new products and processes that realize their true value only after a period of post-market utilization over time. “On/off” coverage mandates based on CER results could eliminate access to valuable interventions that may ultimately benefit patients.

 

NEHI’s white paper will be used as the basis of a stakeholder discussion of CER with key federal policymakers on April 22 in Washington, DC. NEHI’s invitation-only event will provide stakeholders with the opportunity to share their perspectives with the Institute of Medicine, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the National Institutes of Health on how best to sustain innovation as CER is implemented. In addition to the April 22 event, NEHI will also be meeting with policymakers from Congress and the Obama administration to inform them of these findings.

“NEHI is working to ensure that with the implementation of CER, policymakers achieve the best of both worlds: vast improvements in the health care evidence base, along with sustained development and adoption of valuable innovation throughout the health care system,” Everett said.


About NEHI
The New England Healthcare Institute is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming health care for the benefit of patients and their families. In partnership with members from all across the health care system, NEHI conducts evidence-based research and stimulates policy change to improve the quality and the value of health care. Together with this unparalleled network of committed health care leaders, NEHI brings an objective, collaborative and fresh voice to health policy. For more information, visit www.nehi.net.

 

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