CER Health Reform

Who’s running the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)?

As part of Health Reform, the government created the a center to study clinical effectiveness of different health treatments.  This center, known as the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), “does not have the power to mandate or even endorse coverage rules or reimbursement for any particular treatment.”  What leverage does the Institute have?  Not too much.  “Medicare may take the institute’s research into account when deciding what procedures it will cover, so long as the new research is not the sole justification and the agency allows for public input.”  Basically, PCORI is supposed to be like the UK’s NICE but without any teeth.

Who is running PCORI?  The answer was revealed today.  The PCORI Board of Governors includes:

  • Associate Executive Director for the Permanente Medical Group of Northern California,
  • CEO of Empower, LLC,
  • Chairperson  of Friends of Cancer Research,
  • Chief Medical Officer of the Pfizer Medical Division,
  • Chief Science and Technology Officer for Johnson & Johnson,
  • Director of Strategic Partnerships and Alliances at the Xerox Corporation,
  • Executive Vice President of The Regence Group
  • President and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities
  • President of BJC Health Care,
  • Program Director for the Health Technology Assessment program at the Washington State Health Care Authority.
  • Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Health and National Program Director for Cardiology, Department of Veterans Affairs
  • Researchers from the following universities: Dartmouth, Harvard, Mississippi, North Carolina, UCLA, and Yale.
  • Senior Vice President of Medtronic, Inc.

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