I hadn’t heard much about PCORI (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute) until I learned about two large awards given to ImproveCareNow (ImproveCareNow | LOOP). (This blog has previously discussed ImproveCareNow -see links below.)
Now a perspective article provides a lot more detail regarding PCORI (NEJM 2014; 370: 592-94) including the fact that it will commit as much as $1.5 billion over the next 3 years to research projects. While this is impressive, on a side note, PCORI could benefit from a better name. In England, a similar organization is called NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence). Of course, NICE may be more about promoting evidence-based medicine than funding clinical effectiveness research (CER) like PCORI.
A full list of funded projects is available at http://www.pcori.org/pfaawards/?viewby=priority. From this website: “The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) was created to fund research that will provide patients and those who care for them with the evidence-based information needed to make better-informed health and healthcare decisions. We do this by supporting studies that seek to answer questions important to patients and meaningfully involve patients and others across the healthcare community at all stages of the research process.”
According to the perspective article, PCORI has funded 162 CER studies, “37 (23%) focus on cancer detection, treatment or surveillance; 30 (19%) on mental health; 26 (16%) on cardiovascular diseases; and 18 (11%) on endocrine disorders, including diabetes mellitus.”
Bottomline: Though I would appreciate a better name, PCORI clinical effectiveness research projects are going to shape many important healthcare decisions.
Related blog entries:
- Improve Care Now | gutsandgrowth -this post details the success of the improve care now network, provides a link to improve care now patient notebook, and gives extensive background on quality improvement (& gives input from Albert Einstein and Lord Kelvin)
- Quality improvement and better outcomes in … – gutsandgrowth
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