Background
Health care administrators, policy makers, and practitioners must balance the needs and desires of individual patients with the needs and desires of society at large, realizing that not all expectations can be met. Information comparing the expected gains of a medical intervention against the expected cost of that intervention versus other health care interventions is often difficult to interpret or compare. The mission of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research is to translate pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research into practice to ensure that society allocates scarce health care resources wisely, fairly, and efficiently.

ISPOR’s role as a scientific society is to assist in the development and dissemination of scientific policy (good practices in health outcomes research and its use in decision-making), to inform its membership of relevant public policy developments, and when appropriate, to seek to influence public policy-making on the basis of good scientific practice to improve the use of scientific information (i.e. pharmacoeconomic information) in decision making. ISPOR makes a distinction between public policy (legal framework governing the provision of health care in a particular jurisdiction) and scientific policy (good practice in health outcomes research and its use in decision making). ISPOR’s primary focus is on scientific policy issues.

Toward this goal, the ISPOR Health Science Committee, consisting of six task forces, was created several years ago to develop a set of enduring, state of the art reports that identify and recommend best research practices in the areas of economic modeling , retrospective database analyses , prospective trial-based analyses, and quality of life and patient-reported outcomes studies.  In addition, a research code of ethics  and a ‘toolbox’ for the healthcare decision-maker for interpreting and using outcomes studies were created.

These Task Force reports were only a small part of the vision for the Health Science Committee. The broader remit is to provide a virtual “think tank” of experts to advise ISPOR on matters of health science policy.

MEMBERSHIP
The ISPOR Health Science Policy Council is composed of past ISPOR Presidents, recipients of the ISPOR Avedis Donebedian Outcomes Research Lifetime Achievement Award and key thought leaders selected by the Council.

To assure the  Council reflects the interest of the ISPOR membership (as reflected by presentations at the ISPOR meetings and congresses), the Council and the Board of Directors can invite key thought leaders from areas that are under-represented on the Council (e.g. patient-reported outcomes, preference/utility assessments, health care policy analysis and use of “real world” data, health care decision makers, etc.). The Council can also invite outcomes research experts to serve on an ad-hoc, as-needed basis.

Council members identify and discuss issues submitted by ISPOR members and Council members at bi-monthly meetings. Issues approved by the Council are then presented to the Board of Directors for discussion and further action.

CURRENT ISSUES

• Bridging the Health Measurement Gap: Mission Impossible?

ISPOR TASK FORCES RECOMMENDED BY HSPC AND APPROVED BY BOARD OF DIRECTORS

REPORTS OF ISPOR TASK FORCES

COUNCIL ACTIVITIES

• May 2009:  Forum at ISPOR 14th Annual International Meeting in Orlando, FL, USA
  Update on Comparative Effectiveness and Health Information Technology Legislation and Policy Developments, and Their Impact on Pharmacoeconomics