The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Board of Governors recently amended its January 2012 draft research agenda in response to public comments. The board found 15 major themes that emerged from 474 public comments. The purpose of the National Priorities for Research and Research Agenda is to guide funding for comparative clinical effectiveness research. The agenda amendments address PCORI's focus on patient engagement and transparency, patients with multiple chronic conditions, patients with rare diseases, improvement of health delivery systems, and health literacy. The final version of the agenda and the national research priorities...

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) proposed national priorities for patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness in their first version of PCORI’s Research Agenda. PCORI expects to learn and update this as we move forward. We are not specifying or prioritizing any particular condition or disease for research, although we may do so in the future. Consistent with the criteria outlined in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), PCORI’s first research agenda looks at: -Comparisons of Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment Options...

In the Health Affairs article, "How Medicare Could Use Comparative Effectiveness Research In Deciding On New Coverage And Reimbursement," the authors call for research regarding ways to control escalating Medicare costs, while maintaining access to beneficial services. The article proposes a payment model that would incorporate comparative effectiveness research into the Medicare reimbursement model. The authors suggest that Medicare pay equally for services that yield comparable benefits and appropriate higher payment for services with benefits proven to exceed those derived from alternative options. New services without such evidence would receive usual reimbursement rates until enough evidence mounted to justify reevaluation. Although difficult to modify Medicare reimbursement, especially in such partisan political times, the authors urge government to employ comparative effectiveness research in service rewards, improve incentives for cost-effective innovation, and place Medicare on a more stable fiscal footing.