IOM Releases Report Advocating Evidence-Based Assessments
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report last week entitled, “Knowing What Works in Health Care: A Roadmap for the Nation” that was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The report highlighted the need for a national initiative that evaluates the effectiveness of healthcare efforts and practices. The entirety of the report is available on the IOM website.
The report calls on the U.S. Legislature to develop an initiative through the Department of Health and Human Services that will evaluate healthcare practices. The new program will also conduct systematic evidence reviews to further develop evidence-based programming. This facet is increasingly important as the base of clinical literature continues to grow exponentially.
Perhaps most importantly, the program would provide an unbiased source of rigorously reviewed information and assessment guiding healthcare practices and clinical decision making. A proposed additional benefit would be improved means to guide delivery of services to those patients most in need.
In addition to such, the new program will be responsible for developing and promoting the highest standards to guide the creation of good clinical practice guidelines. Such a system would enable evaluation of treatment patterns to ensure that patients receive the optimal treatment. This could also be used to guide reimbursement decisions for health care payors. An additional benefit of such a system is the potential reduction in healthcare costs secondary to a decrease in unnecessary spending.
A number of agencies and organizations already complete some of these activities, but they have not been centrally organized. In addition to such, there is no intermediary to settle disputes when different practices are both posited as superior by two different organizations. As well, resources have been wasted through the duplication of efforts by such disparate parties. These findings can further confuse healthcare consumers who have increasing access to healthcare information.
The goal of the new agency would be to evaluate health sciences with the highest level of scientific rigor and produce stringent guidelines for practice patterns. Additional benefits includes standards for accountability and objectivity, in addition to increasing transparency.
A future consideration for the recommended organization is cost-effectiveness considerations. The report suggests that quality evidence-based assessment is the first step that must be completed before meaningful cost-effectiveness evaluations can be completed. Cost-effectiveness of healthcare treatment and programs could be used to determine more efficient use of healthcare resources.
January 31, 2008 Related topics: Trends, Partnerships & Consortia, Quality, Safety, Errors