FDA Guidance: Methods for identifying what is important to patients

What disease components are most burdensome to patients? How do researchers find this information out? To answer this question, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently put out its second guidance document on Patient-Focused Drug Development: Methods to Identify What Is Important to Patients. A few qualitative approaches they recommend to collect this information include:…

The Voice of the Patient

Did you ever wonder what is is like having lung cancer?  Or narcolepsy?    What factors are most important to patients when receiving treatment for these diseases? The FDA is working to collect these answers to help guide their drug approval process.  The FDA’s “Voice of the Patient” aims to “…more systematically gather patients’ perspectives…

Patient Centered Medical Home: Is your doctor ready?

The answer is probably not.  The NCQA defines 149 factors which would make a practice a successful medical home.  These include physician access during and after office hours, electronic access to patients information, availability of clinical data and use of that data for population management, identification of high risk patients, ability to refer patients to…