Greater 'Openness' in Health Care System Would Improve Results, Create
Economic Growth
CED, Business-Led Policy Group releases Harnessing Openness to Transform
American Health Care
WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- American health care can be
greatly improved by embracing "openness" throughout the health care arena.
That is the principle finding of a new report, Harnessing Openness to
Transform American Health Care, released by the Digital Connections Council
(DCC) of the Committee for Economic Development (CED). The DCC has been
developing the concept of openness in a series of reports.
"There are tremendous benefits to our society if we apply openness to health
care," said Dr. Paul Horn, Chair of the DCC and former Senior Vice President,
Research, IBM Corporation. "A major drawback of our current system is that
information is not shared in a prompt way and we do not take advantage of
contributions that researchers, medical professionals, and patients can make.
This leads, for example, to a tremendous time lag between scientific medical
advances and when they are generally used by medical professionals," Dr. Horn
continued.
Several studies noted in the CED report have found that it takes 13-17 years
for 14 percent of research findings to get into general medical practice.
Harnessing Openness to Transform American Healthcare recommends greater
openness through making information available under far less restrictive
conditions and increasing the ability of others to contribute to it, so that,
for example, research findings are more actively disseminated, become part of
medical best practices, and improve patient outcomes.
For this report, the DCC decided to look at how "openness" was being or might
usefully be employed throughout the healthcare arena. This area, which now
constitutes approximately 16-17 percent of GDP, has long frustrated
policymakers, practitioners, and patients. Bringing greater openness in
different parts of the health care production chain can lead to substantial
benefits by facilitating collaboration, speeding research, stimulating
innovation, lowering costs, reducing errors, and closing the gap between
discovery and treatment delivery.
The report focuses in part on biomedical research and the disclosure of
research findings, the processes for evaluating drugs and devices, the
emergence of electronic health records, the development and implementation of
treatment regimes by caregivers and patients, and the interdependence of the
global public health system. Areas covered include (topic in bold):
Biomedical Research is being transformed by the success of the Human Genome
Project (HGP). The HGP demonstrated the possibilities of mass collaboration
and the beneficial results of allowing data to be accessed immediately and
manipulated by researchers around the world. Other research projects have
adopted this open model and are flourishing by encouraging collaboration, and
sharing data, applications, and even network resources. The DCC recommends
that the federal research agencies push further by enunciating clear policies
favoring openness, funding further work on standards for protocols, formats,
terminology and nomenclature that allow the sharing and manipulation of data,
and supporting experiments with differing levels of openness to determine the
optimal level of openness for research under various scenarios.
In Clinical Trials, questions about the openness of clinical trials have been
raised vigorously over the last decade. Although the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) had long required the registration of clinical trials
involving life-threatening interventions, there have been disputes as to the
completeness of these registrations -- and about the lack of registration of
other clinical trials. Advocates of greater openness here and around the world
have been concerned not only about registrations, but also about access to
trial results and, perhaps more important, to the data that underlie the
results -- and whether the data will be available in a computable form. The
report calls for greater availability of data from trials in electronic form
to speed research and detect possible safety problems.
The use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) raises new openness issues.
Utilizing such records, caregivers at any location would have access to a
patient's medical history. Results of tests and treatments could be added
easily as they become available, thereby improving treatment, preventing
duplicative testing, and reducing medical errors. Eventually, EHRs could be
constructed including family medical histories, genomic and pharmacogenomic
data, environmental exposures, lifestyle and other information, easing the way
toward the "personalization" of treatment. The aggregation of such records and
others could then facilitate the achievement of a genuine "evidence-based"
medical system. Such records provide far richer data than clinical trials, and
could serve as the basis for predictive models similar to those used in other
scientific domains. Harnessing Openness to Transform American Health Care
stresses these benefits but recognizes the need to protect patient privacy and
data security if the potential gains from EHR's are to be realized.
The DCC believes that greater openness in software-controlled Medical Devices
creates new opportunities and challenges. The history of practitioner
innovation in scientific instruments and the malleability of software suggest
the potential for a dramatic increase in practitioner-driven customization.
The report recommends that the FDA begin an examination of how to benefit from
the user-driven innovation while maintaining appropriate oversight for safety
and efficacy.
"The United States has long been a leader in medical innovation and treatment.
Health care continues to grow as a percentage of our economy. Future economic
growth will benefit by greater openness in the field. The recommendations in
Harnessing Openness to Transform American Health Care provide a way to greater
access to information by more people, and more possibilities for them to
contribute based on their own expertise and energy. It shows us a path to
improve health care without great additional expense," said Charles Kolb, CED
President.
Harnessing Openness to Transform American Healthcare and an executive summary
of the recommendations can be found at http://www.ced.org
CED is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of more than 200 business
leaders and university presidents. Since 1942, its research and policy
programs have addressed many of the nation's most pressing economic and social
issues, including education reform, workforce competitiveness, campaign
finance, health care, and global trade and finance. CED promotes policies to
produce increased productivity and living standards, greater and more equal
opportunity for every citizen, and an improved quality of life for all.
SOURCE The Committee for Economic Development
Morgan Broman of the Committee for Economic Development, +1-202-296-5860 ext
14, morgan.broman@ced.org
