PCORI National Patient & Stakeholder Dialogue

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is holding a meeting in Washington today to get feedback on its draft National Priorities for Research and Initial Research Agenda (pdf file).

Background on PCORI – if you’re not up on it – from their website:

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) was created to conduct research to provide information about the best available evidence to help patients and their health care providers make more informed decisions. PCORI’s research is intended to give patients a better understanding of the prevention, treatment and care options available, and the science that supports those options.

Research commissioned by PCORI will produce information patients and their health care providers can trust. Patients will play a major role in PCORI’s work by telling PCORI what health care outcomes they value. PCORI will make sure the results of its research are provided to patients and clinicians in ways that are responsive to their needs and interests and easy to understand. PCORI is an information resource, not a care provider. In releasing its research findings, PCORI will ensure that its research is not construed as mandates for practice guidelines or coverage recommendations.

PCORI is committed to transparency and a rigorous stakeholder-driven process that emphasizes patient engagement. PCORI will use a series of forums and formal public comment periods to increase awareness of its work and obtain public input and feedback prior to adoption of priorities, agendas, methodological standards, peer review processes or dissemination strategies.

PCORI was established by Congress through the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act but is by law an independent, non-profit organization. PCORI is governed by a 21-member Board of Governors.

A longtime health communication/publishing pro, Bill Silberg, has been named as PCORI’s first Director of Communications. Most recently, he had been editor-at-large for the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Previously, Silberg was Vice President for Publishing and Communication at the New York Academy of Sciences, Senior Vice President for Communications and Publishing at the Commonwealth Fund, and Senior Vice President and Executive Editor at Medscape. He spent 13 years at the American Medical Association, holding numerous editorial positions, including web editor at the Journal of the American Medical Association.