What are my options? What would be the best choice for me? When deciding on the right course of action for a medical condition or disease, patients often ask these questions in hospital and doctor offices.
Patients want to be able to choose the best therapy for them, based on their individual needs, preferences, and other factors. They might be faced with difficult decisions about whether to have surgery, medicine, or traditional treatments, or whether they should choose no treatment at all.
Too often, patients don’t have the reliable, researched-based information they need to make informed decisions about their situation or the most important outcomes.
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research InstitutePCORI was created to bridge these gaps and fund research to answer patient’s questions.
“Traditional research simply has not answered many of the questions that matter to patients, such as ‘How will this treatment affect my daily life?'”Joe Selby MD, MPH, Executive Director of PCORI, says “In other cases, research results have not been communicated effectively to patients and their caregivers. “Patients suffer regardless of the reason, when we don’t have enough information.”
PCORI now wants your help to identify which questions to study.
A “Ask a question” feature on PCORI’s website, http://www.pcori.org”>www.pcori.org, allows you to submit the specific questions you want the institute to address. PCORI evaluates every question it receives and will fund studies where it thinks it can make a difference by providing patients with more information.
PCORI invites questions about how different prevention, diagnosis and treatment options compare, how disparities can be reduced, and how to improve health care systems and the way health information is communicated.
Here’s an example of a recent question PCORI received: What medical procedures get the best results for back pain among options that include physical therapy, chiropractic, drugs or surgery?
PCORI is dedicated to addressing questions that are important to patients and can help them make more informed decisions. Your input can help the institute understand the needs patients have and the decisions they face.
“PCORI’s approach is for patients to be included in the research that we fund.” Selby said. “This is your chance to share the difficult, real-world questions that you have with your clinicians and caregivers.
