title: How the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute is engaging patients and others in shaping its research agenda.
abstract: Clinical research has been driven traditionally by investigators, from generating research questions and outcomes through analysis and release of study results. Building on the work of others, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is tapping into its broad-based stakeholder community--especially patients, caregivers, and their clinicians--to generate topics for research, help the institute prioritize those topics, select topics for funding, and ensure patients' involvement in the design of research projects. This article describes PCORI's approach, which is emblematic of the organization's mandate under the Affordable Care Act to seek meaningful ways to integrate the patient's voice into the research process, and describes how it is being used in selection of research that PCORI will fund. We also describe challenges facing our approach, including a lack of common language and training on the part of patients and resistance on the part of researchers to questions that are not researcher generated. Faced with the reality that PCORI will not be able to fund all research questions posed to it, there will also be difficult decisions to make when selecting those that have the highest priority for funding.
authors: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Methods program, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), Washington, D.C., USA. rfleurence@pcori.org
authors: Rachael
authors: R
authors: Fleurence
authors: Joe V
authors: JV
authors: Selby
authors: Kara
authors: K
authors: Odom-Walker
authors: Gail
authors: G
authors: Hunt
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Meltzer
authors: Jean R
authors: JR
authors: Slutsky
authors: Clyde
authors: C
authors: Yancy
mesh_terms: D000047:Academies and Institutes; D003256:Community Participation / Q000379:methods; D006292:Health Priorities; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D009316:National Institutes of Health (U.S.); D010358:Patient Participation; D018802:Patient-Centered Care / Q000379:methods; D014481:United States; D016270:United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; D014486:United States Food and Drug Administration