Academic and Industry Leaders Launch Initiative to Advance Value Measurement

BETHESDA, Md., Sept. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Precision Health Economics today launched the Innovation and Value Initiative (IVI), a multi-stakeholder scientific initiative to advance the way value is measured and rewarded in the healthcare marketplace.

Rapid biomedical progress and rising healthcare costs have led to increasing calls to link spending to value rather than volume of care in the United States. In response, a number of organizations have released "value frameworks" intended to guide purchasing to higher-value treatments, but these existing efforts face key limitations including incomplete value measurement, lack of integration of value assessments into marketplace decision-making, and an absence of true multi-stakeholder perspectives into value measurement.

IVI will advance the science of value measurement and find common ground in how value is measured and rewarded in healthcare by pioneering new scientific methods, developing novel approaches to pricing new technologies, and promoting best practices in value assessment. IVI researchers will conduct scientific studies, analyze public policy, and apply state-of-the-art methods to assess value in the real world.

The IVI scientific agenda will be guided by a Panel of Health Advisors and will include experts from academia, healthcare providers, health plans, life sciences industries, and patient advocacy groups. The Co-Chairs of the IVI Panel of Health Advisors are Dr. Samuel Nussbaum, previously the Executive Vice President for Clinical Health Policy and Chief Medical Officer for Anthem and current Senior Fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, and Dr. Dana Goldman, a professor of health economics at the University of Southern California and the Director of the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.

"To deliver the best possible care to patients—and make sure that healthcare dollars are going to the most beneficial treatments—it is absolutely essential that we evolve our understanding of value and think about creative ways to pay for healthcare," noted Dr. Neil Weissman, President of the MedStar Health Research Institute and Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University. "IVI will fill a much-needed role in leading this effort."

The Executive Director of IVI is Dr. Darius Lakdawalla, a professor of health economics at the University of Southern California, where he serves on the faculties of the School of Pharmacy, the Price School of Public Policy, and the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. 

"The rapid rate of scientific innovation in healthcare has far outpaced innovation in the way we pay for new technologies," according to Dr. Lakdawalla.  "Nearly all stakeholders now agree that we need new and better ways to link spending to value, but efforts in this area have not been well-grounded in science or in the institutions of the US healthcare marketplace. IVI seeks to change that."

"IVI takes the critical step of including multiple stakeholder groups' perspectives in its work," said Dr. Nussbaum. "The research agenda is established by a diverse panel of leading voices in care delivery, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and patient advocacy. These viewpoints will shape the actual research, and allow diverse voices on quality, access and affordability to be heard and inform public policy."

As Dr. Nussbaum describes on the Health Affairs blog, IVI will lead the development of an "approach to technology assessment that reflects multiple perspectives and defines a new role for the United States as an engine of value-based innovation."

IVI is based in Bethesda, MD, and Los Angeles, CA. For more information, visit IVI's website at www.TheValueInitiative.org.

About Precision Health Economics

IVI is an initiative of Precision Health Economics (PHE), a research consulting firm to the healthcare industry. PHE integrates deep technical expertise with practical insights to bring intellectual integrity, academic rigor, and a creative approach to the most challenging problems in healthcare. In addition to its world-renowned team of health economists, PHE draws on the expertise of a network of affiliated academic scientists and clinicians from the world's leading universities, straddling the policy and clinical arenas to reach top decision makers and influence outcomes. The company has offices in Austin, TX; Boston, Mass.; Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland, Calif; and Vancouver, BC. For more information, visit www.precisionhealtheconomics.com.

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