Maximizing the Impact of Comparative Effectiveness Research: The Role of the DEcIDE Consortia
On September 14, 2009, Scott Smith made this presentation at the 2009 Annual Conference. Select to access the PowerPoint® presentation (3 MB).
Slide 1
Maximizing the Impact of Comparative Effectiveness Research: The Role of the DEcIDE Consortia
Scott R. Smith, PhD
AHRQ Center for Outcomes & Evidence
US Department of Health & Human Services
Slide 2
Effective Health Care (EHC) Program, 2003 - Present
- Authorized in 2003 by Section 1013 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act
- Conducts objective comparisons of the effectiveness of different health care interventions
- Goal: To support informed health care decisions by patients, clinicians, and policymakers and improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of health care to support evidence-based practice
Slide 3
Effective Health Care Program
- Evidence synthesis (EPC program)
- Systematically reviewing, synthesizing, comparing existing evidence on treatment effectiveness.
- Identifying relevant knowledge gaps.
- Evidence generation (DEcIDE, CERTs)
- Development of new scientific knowledge to address knowledge gaps.
- Accelerate practical studies.
- Evidence communication/translation (Eisenberg Center)
- Translate evidence into improvements
- Communication of scientific information in plain language to policymakers, patients, and providers.
Slide 4
CBO Comparative Effectiveness Definition
Comparative Effectiveness
".a rigorous evaluation of the impact of different options that are available for treating a given medical condition for a particular set of patients."
Congressional Budget Office, 2007
Slide 5
Priority Conditions for the Effective Health Care Program
- Arthritis and non-traumatic joint disorders
- Cancer
- Cardiovascular disease, including stroke and hypertension
- Dementia, including Alzheimer's Disease
- Depression and other mental health disorders
- Developmental delays, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism
- Diabetes Mellitus
- Functional limitations and disability
- Infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS
- Obesity
- Peptic ulcer disease and dyspepsia
- Pregnancy, including pre-term birth
- Pulmonary disease/Asthma
- Substance abuse
Slide 6
Available EHC Products
- Research Reviews
- New Research Reports
- Technical Briefs
- Summary Guides
Slide 7
Evidence Generation
- DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions about Effectiveness) Network.
- Capitalizing on data
- New methods
- Answers for questions that don't require multi-year, multi-million $ trials
Slide 8
What Does DEcIDE Primarily Do?
- Analyze existing health care databases to compare the effectiveness & outcomes of treatment.
- Analyze existing disease, device, and other registries.
- Conduct methodological studies to improve research on clinical effectiveness of treatments.
Slide 9
Summary &"Unofficial" DEcIDE Statistics
- 13 DEcIDE centers.
- Over 60 core clinical scientists.
- Over 500 affiliated personnel.
- Access to >120 different health databases.
- Health data on over 50 million Americans.
- Nation's largest network of researchers in therapeutic effectiveness.
Slide 10
AHRQ DEcIDE Research Centers
Image: A map of the United States is shown with the 13 research centers.
- Acumen, LLC - Palo Alto, CA
- U of Colorado - Aurora, CO
- U of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia, PA
- U of Illinois - Chicago, IL
- Vanderbilt U - Nashville, TN
- Outcome Science - Cambridge, MA
- Harvard Pilgrim - Boston, MA
- U of Maryland - Baltimore, MD
- U of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, NC
- Brigham & Women's Hospital - Boston, MA
- Johns Hopkins - Baltimore, MD
- Duke University - Durham, NC
- RTI International - RTP, NC
Slide 11
DEcIDE Focus Areas in Comparative Effectiveness
An image of a three tiered circle is shown
First Tier
- Cancer
- Diabetes
- Cardiovascular
- ADHD
- TBD
Second Tier
- Distributed Networks
- Methods
- Data Analytics
- Stakeholders
Third Tier
- Comparative Effectiveness
Slide 12
Comparative Effectiveness and the Recovery Act
- The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 includes $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research:
- AHRQ: $300 million
- NIH: $400 million (appropriated to AHRQ and transferred to NIH)
- Office of the Secretary: $400 million (allocated at the Secretary's discretion)
Funding for health IT, prevention and other areas could have implications for the Agency
Slide 13
Today's Speakers
- 3:15-3:35
- Cardiovascular Consortium
Eric D. Peterson, MD, MPH, FAHA, FACC
Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology
Duke University Medical Center
- Cardiovascular Consortium
- 3:35-3:55
- Diabetes Consortium
Joe Selby, MD, MPH &
Director, Division of Research
Kaiser Permanente, North California
- Diabetes Consortium
- 3:55-3:10
- Cancer Consortium
Deborah Schrag, MD & Caprice Greenberg, MD,MP
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
- Cancer Consortium
- 3:10-3:25
- Audience Questions to Panel
Slide 14
Recovery Act Timeline: AHRQ
2009
February 17: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is signed into law
March 19: Establishment of Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research
May 1: Due date for Agency wide and program-specific Recovery Act plans
June 30: Due date for IOM submission of a list of national priority conditions*
July 30: AHRQ to submit FY '09 Operations Plan
November 1: AHRQ FY '10 operations plan due
December 31, 2010: All Recovery Act funding to be obligated
* Stakeholder input required
Slide 15
CER Moving Forward: Issues to Consider
- Comparative Effectiveness is a useful tool in a much larger toolkit - it is not "the answer"
- Comparative Effectiveness does not make policy or health care decisions, tell doctors how to practice medicine or make final decisions about what kind of treatments insurers will pay for
- Comparative Effectiveness does weigh the evidence and present it in a way that helps consumers and their doctors make the best possible decisions about health care choices
Slide 16
The Future
- Public-private funding and participation likely a necessity
- More effort to get better conditional reimbursement study designs/protocols
- Patients should be engaged as partners at the local and national levels
- Need to tackle important issues
- Ethical
- When to know when the evidence is sufficient
- Transparency
- Setting priorities


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