The ISPOR 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 Boards of Directors had yet another busy year in 2007. The Boards met six times (4 teleconferences and 2 face-to-face meetings). The Board approved the following:

ISPOR Vision Implementation
• To address new initiatives identified at the 2007 ISPOR Leadership Retreat:

Research Excellence: the Health Science Policy Council should consider the following topics in the development of new ISPOR initiatives [comparative effectiveness; methods for extrapolating beyond data (lifetime) and validating pharmacoeconomic models; better analysis of comorbidities & impact of disease; developing an inventory of methods from other disciplines including partnering with other disciplines; patient advocacy council]

Reaching Out to Decision-makers: a Decisionmaker Ad Hoc Group were formed to consider the following topics in the development of new ISPOR initiatives [strategy to get key HTA individuals involved in ISPOR; work with decisionmaker organizations]

Promoting Education: the Education Committee should consider the following topics in the development of new ISPOR initiatives [for distant learning, content development; for short courses, train the educators & link with professional organizations to determine their interest/needs]

International Growth: the Asia & Latin America Consortia should develop a needs assessment to identify issues (e.g. member's interest, barriers to becoming members & transfer of knowledge from the “west”)

• The Board approved the ISPOR Revised Code of Ethics. A request for comments was sent to the ISPOR members with a 30-day comment period at: [http://www.ispor.org/workpaper/CodeOfEthics.asp]. A Board Ad Hoc Committee as well as the New Code of Ethics Task Force Chair was formed to review the comments and recommend actions.

Financial Actions:
• 2007 budget was approved.
• With the goal to improve the content of ISPOR CONNECTIONS, the following benefits were approved for the ISPOR CONNECTIONS Editor-in-Chief: complimentary registration for the ISPOR Annual International Meetings and Annual European Congresses and travel reimbursement per ISPOR Travel Reimbursement Policy and hotel room reimbursement for 4 days.
• The Board approved that annual meeting / congress invited issue panelists and moderator (except individuals employed by industry) receive a complimentary registration, hotel room (one night stay for intra-continental and two nights for transcontinental travel), travel expense reimbursement per ISPOR Travel Reimbursement Policy.
• The Board confirmed the appointment of Karen Rascati as the 2007-2010 ISPOR Treasurer.

Student Actions:
The following Student Chapters were approved:
Warsaw School of Medicine Student Chapter (Poland), University of Texas at Houston Student Chapter (USA), and McMaster University Student Chapter (Canada).

Local Chapter Actions:
The following ISPOR Local Chapters were approved:
Argentina, Chicago (USA), China- Shanghai, Slovakia, Serbia, South Africa, Colombia, Chile, Israel, Hungary, and Greece.

Award Actions:
• The ISPOR International Fellowship Award description, nature of the awards, award requirements, selection criteria, and selection process were approved including a follow-up report after the Fellowship experience and 2 years later.
• The Board recommended that “financial need may be considered” is added to the selection criteria for the ISPOR International Fellowship Award.
• The deadline for candidate submission for the ISPOR International Fellowship Award is changed from September 30th to November 30th of each year.
• The Board approved Dr. David Eddy as the 2007 Avedis Donabedian Lifetime Achievement Awardee, Dr. Todd Lee as the 2007 Bernie J. O'Brien New Investigator Awardee; the ISPOR Board of Directors Service Awardees (Peter Neumann, 2005-2006 President; Joyce Cramer, 2005-2007 Director, Scott Ramsey, 2005-2007 Director; Lorne Basskin, 2004-2007 Treasurer) and the ISPOR Distinguished Service Awardees (Scott Ramsey, 12th Annual International Meeting Program Committee Chair; Michael Barry and Michael Drummond, 10th Annual European Congress Program Committee Chairs; Joyce Cramer, ISPOR Medication Compliance and Persistence SIG Chair; and the 2006-2007 ISPOR Student Chapter Presidents); the recipient of the 2007 ISPOR Research Excellence Awardee in Methodology Anirban Basu, PhD, for his paper "Scale of Interest vs. Scale of Estimation: Comparing Alternative Estimators for the Incremental Costs of a Co-morbidity," Health Econ 2006:15:1091-107; and the recipient of the 2007 ISPOR Research Excellence Awardee in Practical Application John Hsu MD, MBA, MSCE for his paper "Unintended Consequences of Caps on Medicare Drug Benefits", N Engl J Med 2006;54:349-59.
• The Board approved that the Value in Health Co-editors, with 4 or more years of service and who have resigned or whose term has ended, receive an ISPOR Distinguished Service Award during the Annual Meeting Awards Program
• The Board approved that the Chair and Vice- Chair of the ISPOR 1st Latin America Conference, Diana Pinto and Rafael Alfonso, as recipients of the ISPOR Distinguished Service Awards

Publication - ISPOR CONNECTIONS Actions:
• The Board approved Thomas Mittendorf PhD, MSc, Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany and David Thompson PhD, Vice President, Global Health Economics, Medford, MA, USA as 2008-2012 Co-Editors-in-Chief for ISPOR CONNECTIONS. The Co-Editors-in-Chief, along with current Editor-in-Chief Steven Marx, and ISPOR CONNECTIONS Managing Editor, Stephen Priori, will develop the roles of each Editor-in-Chief

Organizational/Policies and Procedures Actions:
• The Board approved that the number of Directors on the Board of Directors is increased from 5 to 7 Directors and the Nominations Committee is responsible to assure that the Board is a balanced representation of the ISPOR membership with respect to education, professional interests, work experience, geographic location, and gender.
• The Board approved the policies and procedures for the ISPOR Health Science Policy Council.
• The Board approved the policies & procedures for formation and naming of a task force.
• The Board approved the 2007-2008 Board sub-Committee chairs and members.

Meeting Actions:
• The ISPOR Annual Meeting/Congress Program Committee Chairs Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) was approved with the recommendation that in a teleconference, ISPOR staff, using the SOP questionnaire, interview and summarize the Program Committee Chairs issues and suggestions for improving the ISPOR Annual Meetings. It was suggested that the next year's Program Chair(s) also attend this teleconference.
• The Board acknowledged the new category of abstract submissions for the ISPOR 12th Annual International Meeting - Case Studies in Health Care Decision using Costs and Outcomes Research Data. This initiative is to address the Vision 2010 goal to reach out to health care decision-makers [i.e.:. .include individuals interested in the use of information on the costs and consequences of health care interventions as well as the processes by which health care decisions are made]. These case studies are to be submissions from health care decision maker that describe situations where organizations attempted to integrate cost and outcome information into their processes and procedures. Submissions describing successes, works in progress, or failures are encouraged.

Special Interest Group/ Committee/Task Force/ Council/Consortium Actions:
• The Board approved Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO) Good Research Practices Task Forces to address the following topics: Use of Existing PRO Instruments and their Modification, PRO Instrument Creation, Changing Culture or Language of PRO Application, Changing Mode of Administration of PRO Instrument including ePRO, and Development of PRO Instruments for Children and Youth as recommended by the Health Science Policy Council.
• The Board endorsed the ISPOR Fellowship Standards Task Force initiative of publishing guidelines for groups interested in developing post-graduate pharmacoeconomic fellowship programs and for students interested in pursuing such programs; 2) encouraged the collaboration of ISPOR Fellowship Standards Task Force with the American College of Clinical Pharmacy in the development of a joint statement to be published in Pharmacotherapy; and 3) recommended that the Task Force consider submitting a Letter to the Editor to Value in Health referencing the Pharmacotherapy article. [Note: An article on the Pharmacoeconomic Fellowship Guidelines could also be published in ISPOR CONNECTIONS and at the ISPOR website with a link to Pharmacotherapy. It was also suggested that an article on historical trends in the types of training & implications for outcomes research would be of interest.]
• The Board approved a Retrospective Database Good Research Practice Task Force with the goal to define good research practices for longitudinal data analysis with time-varying measures including time-dependent confounding variables and ensure internal validity and improve causal inference from observational studies using retrospective databases.
• The Board approved that the Health Care Strategy Council is renamed the Health Technology Assessment Council to be consistent with current initiatives of the Society and that this Council continue to address the missions as stated at: http://www.ispor.org/ councils/HTA_council.asp

ISPOR Comments on Public Policy:
• The Board approved that ISPOR provide comments to the EUnetHTA Core Model. In this approval the Board is not supporting any specific recommendation, but the process of providing comments to EUnetHTA. The approved ISPOR Letter of Comments and the EUnetHTA HTA Core Model is at: http://www.ispor.org/ workpaper/ispor_comments/index.asp.