Comparative Effectiveness and Personalized Medicine Conference Free Webcast Available Now

ECRI Institute's 17th Annual Conference Held at NIH -- Free Access to Webcast, Slides, and Post-Conference Blog

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Oct. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- ECRI Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and other cosponsors, held a day and a half conference at NIH on October 19 and 20, 2010, entitled Comparative Effectiveness and Personalized Medicine: An Essential Interface. The full conference Webcast, speaker slides, and post-conference speaker questions and answers are now available for viewing at no cost on ECRI Institute's Web site at www.ecri.org/ceblog. ECRI Institute's Comparative Effectiveness Resource Center at www.ecri.org/ce provides supplementary information on this and previous conferences and on comparative effectiveness more generally.

"Personalizing comparative effectiveness research helps to bring science and public demand into better alignment," says Jeffrey C. Lerner, PhD, President and CEO, ECRI Institute. "Generating and applying evidence effectively in policy and practice is the catalyst for that alignment. Our conference themes can be expected to be important for the newly created Patient-centered Outcomes Research Institute."

Nearly 40 distinguished speakers from the public and private sector, including Drs. Francis Collins, Director, National Institutes of Health, and Carolyn Clancy, Director, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, provided insights on the evolution and interface of these two important trends in the current healthcare system.

The conference session themes are relevant to the recently passed healthcare legislation, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which created the Patient-centered Outcomes Research Institute and which emphasizes the significance of comparative effectiveness research for evaluating clinical outcomes, including for sub-populations.

The 11 conference sessions covered clinical decision-making with whole genome sequencing, as well as other means for identifying subpopulations, evolving methods and data sources, case studies on cancer (where, arguably, personalized medicine is most advanced), and implementation challenges and approaches in hospitals and integrated delivery systems. Speakers from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and private insurers examined regulation and coverage and its implications for the technology innovation so prized by the public.

Along with ECRI Institute, National Institutes of Health, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, senior leaders from Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy, Health Affairs, the Milbank Memorial Fund, and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania played key roles in designing a program intended for multiple healthcare constituencies, including payers and providers, policymakers, researchers, industry, government, and consumer groups.

For more information, please contact ECRI Institute by e-mail at [email protected], by phone at 610-825-6000, ext. 5310, or mail to 5200 Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462.

About ECRI Institute

ECRI Institute (www.ecri.org), a nonprofit organization, dedicates itself to bringing the discipline of applied scientific research to healthcare to discover which medical procedures, devices, drugs, and processes are best to enable improved patient care. As pioneers in this science for more than 40 years, ECRI Institute marries experience and independence with the objectivity of evidence-based research. Strict conflict-of-interest guidelines ensure objectivity. ECRI Institute is designated as a Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization and an Evidence-based Practice Center by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. ECRI Institute PSO, listed as a federally certified Patient Safety Organization by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, strives to achieve the highest levels of safety and quality in healthcare by collecting and analyzing patient safety information and sharing lessons learned and best practices.

SOURCE ECRI Institute