title: The patient-centered outcomes research institute should focus on high-impact problems that can be solved quickly.
abstract: The Affordable Care Act created the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to help patients, clinicians, and policy makers make well-informed decisions about health care. Because its funding expires in 2019, the institute has little time in which to produce timely, practice-changing results that will build public support for comparative effectiveness research. PCORI should plan its research agenda strategically, so that it addresses research questions that comparative effectiveness research could answer quickly and decisively. To date, the institute has not chosen this path. In January 2012 PCORI's first research agenda described broad research priorities rather than specific clinical questions. The institute must drive the burgeoning discipline of comparative effectiveness research forward, starting with a research project agenda that conveys a sense of urgency and strategic direction.
authors.affiliation: Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA. hsox@comcast.net
authors.forename: Harold
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sox
mesh_terms: D000047:Academies and Institutes / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration; D002755:Choice Behavior; D057186:Comparative Effectiveness Research; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; D018802:Patient-Centered Care; D014481:United States