Gail Wilensky, who ran the Health Care Finance Administration under Bush I (that's CMS now) has an article today calling for a new public-private agency to evaluate the comparative-effectiveness of medical technologies.
Gail is smart and thoughful on health care matter so I can't figure out what she was thinking here. Maybe she thought she could tame the CE crowd which has an agenda.
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As the ALLHAT and CATIE studies show, even well funded comparative effectiveness studies will fall into dis-use for every good reasons. They are poorly designed, they are superceded by studies or personalized medicines that are based on a better mechanistic understanding of disease pathways. Applying ALLHAT recommendations to African Americans will kill them for example. And notice that people who promote C-E never talk about genetic testing to determine which medicine works best? That would be like Tower records talking about Itunes...
Indeed, since most C-E are underpowered they do not capture the genetic variations that explain and cause differences in response to medicines or other intereventions so of course "they all look alike" and regress to cheaper is better. Meta analysis only reinforces this one size fits all conclusion. Which is why for example, NICE has never caught an increased survival benefit from any new cancer drug since 1970. Then again, if you post your QALY at 50K survival doesn't mean very much either.
All of which translates into reimbursement decisions and the comparative effectiveness crowd knows it.
Take UK, Germany, Australia and Canada. All take their sweet time reviewing studies. All deny and limit access to new medicines and have fail first policies based on C-E. Have you read any of the VA off-formulary guidances? Take someone who has non-hodgkins's lymphoma. In the private sector, Rituxan is standard therapy. But not in the countries you cite and not in the VA.. Why? According to the comparative effectiveness studies, the reimbursing agencies want you to go through more painful and more toxic treatments first.
Finally, the entire field of medicine is moving toward the molecular and the personalized. Comparative effectiveness in the 21st century boils down to the right treatment for the right person at the right time. The agency Gail proposes is totally unsuited for arriving at that answer. I have read everyone of the AHQR comparative effectiveness studies...They are not usable in the clinical setting for docs because they are one size fits all and retrospective.
We need to invest in developing personalized treatment strategies that are preventive and prospective in nature. All this C-E will make the foundations and liberals that hate drug companies -- who by the way -- are not developing the next generation of new medicines (biotech firms that make no money are, ) happy. But it will hurt patients by delaying access and giving bureaucrats who know nothing about the practice or science of medicine control over care.
Gail is smart and thoughful on health care matter so I can't figure out what she was thinking here. Maybe she thought she could tame the CE crowd which has an agenda.
http://
As the ALLHAT and CATIE studies show, even well funded comparative effectiveness studies will fall into dis-use for every good reasons. They are poorly designed, they are superceded by studies or personalized medicines that are based on a better mechanistic understanding of disease pathways. Applying ALLHAT recommendations to African Americans will kill them for example. And notice that people who promote C-E never talk about genetic testing to determine which medicine works best? That would be like Tower records talking about Itunes...
Indeed, since most C-E are underpowered they do not capture the genetic variations that explain and cause differences in response to medicines or other intereventions so of course "they all look alike" and regress to cheaper is better. Meta analysis only reinforces this one size fits all conclusion. Which is why for example, NICE has never caught an increased survival benefit from any new cancer drug since 1970. Then again, if you post your QALY at 50K survival doesn't mean very much either.
All of which translates into reimbursement decisions and the comparative effectiveness crowd knows it.
Take UK, Germany, Australia and Canada. All take their sweet time reviewing studies. All deny and limit access to new medicines and have fail first policies based on C-E. Have you read any of the VA off-formulary guidances? Take someone who has non-hodgkins's lymphoma. In the private sector, Rituxan is standard therapy. But not in the countries you cite and not in the VA.. Why? According to the comparative effectiveness studies, the reimbursing agencies want you to go through more painful and more toxic treatments first.
Finally, the entire field of medicine is moving toward the molecular and the personalized. Comparative effectiveness in the 21st century boils down to the right treatment for the right person at the right time. The agency Gail proposes is totally unsuited for arriving at that answer. I have read everyone of the AHQR comparative effectiveness studies...They are not usable in the clinical setting for docs because they are one size fits all and retrospective.
We need to invest in developing personalized treatment strategies that are preventive and prospective in nature. All this C-E will make the foundations and liberals that hate drug companies -- who by the way -- are not developing the next generation of new medicines (biotech firms that make no money are, ) happy. But it will hurt patients by delaying access and giving bureaucrats who know nothing about the practice or science of medicine control over care.
