Institute of Medicine Report, Initial National Priorities for Comparative Effectiveness Research, June 30, 2009.

Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, Report to the President and the Congress, June 30, 2009.

Testimony presented by SMDM President, Mark Roberts, MD, MPP, at the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Listening Session, Washington D.C., June 10, 2009.

SMDM Board Background Paper on Comparative Effectiveness Research, May 2009.

Memo to Legislators to accompany background paper, June 2009.

Press release on background paper, June 12, 2009.

SMDM Statement on Comparative Effectiveness Legislation, October 2007.

Video of Brookings Institute Symposium entitled, Implementing Comparative Effectiveness Research: Priorities, Methods, and Impact, June 9, 2009, including discussion of, Setting Priorities for Comparative Effectiveness Research, a research paper by SMDM members Alan Garber, MD, PhD and David Meltzer, MD, PhD. See page 15 of the link for the full paper.

POLICY INITIATIVE:  FOCUS AREAS AND LEADERSHIP

Issues in Methodology

Policy and Procedure for Developing SMDM Position Papers on Methods

The Society is interested in soliciting, preparing, and endorsing high quality guidelines, and position papers on a variety of clinical, methodological, and policy topics of key relevance to the membership. The objective of this endeavor is for the Society to leverage the expertise of its members to develop a set of landmark position papers for submission to Medical Decision Making.

Senior Chair: Karen Kuntz

Co-Chair and Board Liaison: Uwe Siebert

Technology Assessment

The Technology Assessment group advises the Board of Trustees on roles for the Society in the comparative effectiveness research debate, including drafting position statements on comparative effectiveness, and other related matters. Links to adopted statements can be found at the top of this page.

Senior Co-Chairs: Alan Garber, Scott Gazelle and Mark Liebow

Co-Chairs: Amber Barnato and James Stahl

Board Liaison: Allison Rosen

Global Health

This recently launched effort is working to identify a role for SMDM in global health policy. Areas of focus:

1. Working with existing SMDM committees and the journal to expand access potential to members from resource-poor settings;
2. Identifying regional meetings and training programs where SMDM could be represented;
3. Evaluating a role for SMDM in methods development for global health policy evaluations; and
4. Creating dissemination vehicles.

Chair and Board Liaison: Bruce Schackman

Co-chairs: Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert and Jef Van den Ende

Public Health Policy

This effort is focusing on three key strategies:

1. Educating SMDM members about the policy making process and about how analyses are used by policy makers,
2. Creating a network of people within SMDM that policy makers can come to for advice, and
3. Connecting to other associations and societies where people are doing economic evaluation of public health programs and policy.

Chair: Scott Grosse

Co-chair: Rochelle Walensky

Board Liaison: Phaedra Corso

Advisor: Doug Owens

To join one of the Policy Working Groups, email SMDM Executive Director, Jill Metcalf at jill.metcalf@smdm.org.

ROLES FOR SMDM ROLE IN POLICY

In its initial stages, the SMDM policy initiative is focusing on four key areas: methodological issues in medical decision making, global health, public health, and the actual and potential roles of technology assessment on coverage/reimbursement policy. We envision the roles SMDM might play within each of these focus areas to include:

• Creating learning opportunities for our members and for external audiences (decision makers, other researchers, stakeholders, others)
• Communicating to members about the key issues
• Providing knowledge and tools to our members so they can be more fully engaged in policy

We realize additional opportunities for SMDM involvement will arise as the Working Groups develop and those opportunities will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

Members will increase their knowledge about and involvement in the policy making process.

Members will be more engaged in SMDM because of our role in policy making.

MDM concepts and tools will be used to evaluate policy options in the areas where we choose to focus our resources.

Methods of medical decision making will improve as a result of their use and feedback.

SMDM will attract new sources of revenue to support our mission.

SMDM will be known as a resource for unbiased, rigorous analysis of issues in the policy making process.

SMDM becomes a primary source of knowledge for integrating research and application.