Princeton, NJ, USA, April 29, 2015 – The International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) will hold its 20th Annual International Meeting, May 16-20, 2015 in Philadelphia, PA, USA. The 2015 Annual International Meeting marks ISPOR’s 20th anniversary and focuses on recent changes in the U.S. health sector under the theme of Integrating Big Data, Patient Data, and Cost-Effectiveness into Clinical Practice: Promise and Prospects. More than 3,500 professionals from research and academia, as well as policy makers, payers, and patient representative groups from the U.S. and from more than 65 countries are expected to attend.
“Rapid changes in the health care delivery system and the data infrastructure that supports it have increased the speed at which data has become available and are used in health care,” said Nancy S. Berg, ISPOR CEO & Executive Director. “Among questions to be considered at this year’s Annual International Meeting are: will these changes deliver on their promise to improve health care and also be cost-effective, and is big data being used to effectively inform health care practice?”
These questions and other related challenges will be taken up by health care experts with a wide range of expertise who will share their insights, experience and research. In addition to pre-meeting education sessions, and three plenary sessions, the meeting features forums, panel discussions, workshops and more than 1,750 research presentations.
Presentations will cover the latest information and methodologies for incorporating pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research study designs and health care decision making into health care practice. Information on database applications, comparative effectiveness research, outcomes reporting, statistical methods, and the latest techniques for economic analyses, will also be offered.
First Plenary Session, Monday May 18, 2015 - 9:00 am to 10:30 am, “Taking Stock of the Learning Health Care System: What Have We Achieved and Why Does it Matter?”
Have private and public investments to integrate and translate research into practice using electronic data for tracking patients across health care providers and time paid off?
Moderator: Penny Mohr, MA, Senior Program Officer, Improving Healthcare Systems, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), Washington, DC, USA
Speakers
Sarah Greene, MPH, Associate Director, CER Methods and Infrastructure, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), Washington, DC, USA.
Sachin H. Jain, MD, MBA, Chief Medical Officer, CareMore/Anthem and Lecturer in Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Cerritos, CA, USA.
Lewis G. Sandy, MD, FACP, Senior Vice President, Clinical Advancement, UnitedHealth Group, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Second Plenary Session, Tuesday May 19, 2015 – 9:00 am to 10:30 am, “Cost-Effectiveness and Clinical Practice Guidelines: Have We Reached a Tipping Point?”
Oncology and cardiology professional organizations have embraced cost-effectiveness and the value of treatments in developing clinical practice guidelines and pathways. What impact has this had on medical practice?
Moderator: Lou Garrison, PhD, Professor, Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy Program, Department of Pharmacy, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Speakers
Mark A. Hlatky, MD, Professor of Health Research and Policy and Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine), Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
Peter P. Yu, MD, FACP, FASCO, Director of Cancer Research, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Sunnyvale, CA and President, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Alexandria, VA, USA.
Michael Drummond, MCom, DPhil, Professor of Health Economics, Centre for Health Economics, University of York, Heslington, York, UK.
Third Plenary Session, Wednesday May 20, 2015 – 9:45 am to 11:00 am, “Big Data, Big Systems, and Better Evidence: What Progress?”
What does the growing interest in ‘big data’ mean for health care delivery systems and the patients the systems are meant to serve? Can big data improve clinical decision making? If so, how will patients be affected?
Moderator: Adrian Towse, MA, MPhil, Director, Office of Health Economics, London, UK.
Speakers
Ari Caroline, Chief Analytics Officer, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA.
Jamie C. Morris, Life Sciences Leader, IBM Watson Group, New York, NY, USA.
Paul Wallace, MD, Chief Medical Officer & Senior Vice President, Clinical Translation, Optum Labs and Chair, Board of Directors, Academy Health, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Additional Highlighted sessions include:
The Scope & Consequences of Rx Cost Shifting from Payers to Patients
Patients are being asked to pay an ever-increasing share of their health care costs through higher deductibles, higher copays, and/or higher co-insurance rates, which may encourage patients to become more prudent consumers. Speakers will examine the impact of patient cost-sharing from multiple perspectives.
The $2.6 Billion Question: Why Are Drug Development Costs Rising and Can We Afford It?
Panelists with three different perspectives will evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of current patient-focused drug development initiatives at the FDA and debate the appropriate form and influence patient and caregiver preferences should have in regulatory decision making.
The SIMULATE Checklist - Applying Dynamic Simulation Modeling Methods in Health Care Delivery Research
For health care planning, health care delivery system interventions need to incorporate the dynamics and complexities of the health care system context in which the intervention is delivered. Speakers will provide an overview of dynamic simulation modeling methods and examples of health care system problems where such methods have been useful to aid decisions as to whether these simulation methods are appropriate to address health systems problems at-hand.
Emerging Good Practices in Patient- and Observer-Reported Outcomes (PROs & ObsROs) Measurement in Rare Disease Clinical Trials
There are significant challenges to developing, modifying and selecting PRO and ObsRO measures for rare disease treatment evaluation and standard methods and strategies of PRO and ObsRO development, validation and implementation, including those recommended by regulators. The measures need to be interpreted in the context of the unique problems associated with rare disease (RD) populations. Speakers will present possible solutions to address common challenges that arise when working with RD populations, emphasizing pragmatic approaches to these challenges.
How Best to Use Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) in Health Care Decision Making
With the increase in the number of MCDAs published in health care, regulators and payers are employing MCDA to support their decision making. This increased use of MCDA has drawn attention to several challenges and the ISPOR MCDA Taskforce was established to generate best practice recommendations. This workshop is designed to share the preliminary recommendations of the expert group.
ISPOR invites members of the media to attend the ISPOR 20th Annual International Meeting. The deadline to apply for a press pass to the meeting is May 8, 2015. To learn more about ISPOR and ISPOR’s 20th Annual International Meeting, and to acquire a press pass, please visit: http://www.ispor.org/Event/EventInformation/2015Philadelphia?p=296 or email Danielle Mroz, MA, Director, Communications for ISPOR at dmroz@ispor.org. Interviews with speakers can be arranged and information on pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research and the impact on patients and the health care system will be available.