Conducting Health Outcomes Research


Book Description

Health Sciences & Professions




Understanding Health Care Outcomes Research


Book Description

Health Sciences & Professions




Statistical Topics in Health Economics and Outcomes Research


Book Description

With ever-rising healthcare costs, evidence generation through Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) plays an increasingly important role in decision-making about the allocation of resources. Accordingly, it is now customary for health technology assessment and reimbursement agencies to request for HEOR evidence, in addition to data from clinical trials, to inform decisions about patient access to new treatment options. While there is a great deal of literature on HEOR, there is a need for a volume that presents a coherent and unified review of the major issues that arise in application, especially from a statistical perspective. Statistical Topics in Health Economics and Outcomes Research fulfils that need by presenting an overview of the key analytical issues and best practice. Special attention is paid to key assumptions and other salient features of statistical methods customarily used in the area, and appropriate and relatively comprehensive references are made to emerging trends. The content of the book is purposefully designed to be accessible to readers with basic quantitative backgrounds, while providing an in-depth coverage of relatively complex statistical issues. The book will make a very useful reference for researchers in the pharmaceutical industry, academia, and research institutions involved with HEOR studies. The targeted readers may include statisticians, data scientists, epidemiologists, outcomes researchers, health economists, and healthcare policy and decision-makers.




Secondary Analysis of Electronic Health Records


Book Description

This book trains the next generation of scientists representing different disciplines to leverage the data generated during routine patient care. It formulates a more complete lexicon of evidence-based recommendations and support shared, ethical decision making by doctors with their patients. Diagnostic and therapeutic technologies continue to evolve rapidly, and both individual practitioners and clinical teams face increasingly complex ethical decisions. Unfortunately, the current state of medical knowledge does not provide the guidance to make the majority of clinical decisions on the basis of evidence. The present research infrastructure is inefficient and frequently produces unreliable results that cannot be replicated. Even randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the traditional gold standards of the research reliability hierarchy, are not without limitations. They can be costly, labor intensive, and slow, and can return results that are seldom generalizable to every patient population. Furthermore, many pertinent but unresolved clinical and medical systems issues do not seem to have attracted the interest of the research enterprise, which has come to focus instead on cellular and molecular investigations and single-agent (e.g., a drug or device) effects. For clinicians, the end result is a bit of a “data desert” when it comes to making decisions. The new research infrastructure proposed in this book will help the medical profession to make ethically sound and well informed decisions for their patients.




Designing and Conducting Research in Health and Human Performance


Book Description

Designing and Conducting Research in Health and Human Performance, 2nd edition shows students how to become effective producers and consumers of health and human performance research. Like the first edition, this edition provides comprehensive coverage of both quantitative and qualitative research methods and includes step-by-step guidance for writing effective research proposals and theses. In addition, the authors show how to read, assess, interpret, and apply published research and how to conduct basic studies in health, physical education, exercise science, athletic training, and recreation. In this edition, the authors have also expanded areas of research design to include the PICO (patient problem or population, intervention, comparison, and outcomes) technique. Designing and Conducting Research in Health and Human Performance, 2nd edition is filled with more up-to-date illustrative examples that emphasize the real-world applications of research methods. Throughout, the authors draw on a variety of examples that were selected because they provide a context to further the understanding of health and human performance research. Research to Practice examples and Tips are included by the authors to help students better appreciate the book’s content. Additionally, new to this edition, is Pulse Check, which provides an opportunity for students to engage in critical thinking in all things research. These study aids provide suggestions and additional resources to assist students in understanding the research process. Key terms, defined and highlighted, enrich each chapter. The end of each chapter includes Applying What You Learned sections designed to help students comprehend and follow best practices in research methods. Online resources and guides developed by the authors to support and enhance students’ learning of important research concepts are available.




Modern Methods of Clinical Investigation


Book Description

The very rapid pace of advances in biomedical research promises us a wide range of new drugs, medical devices, and clinical procedures. The extent to which these discoveries will benefit the public, however, depends in large part on the methods we choose for developing and testing them. Modern Methods of Clinical Investigation focuses on strategies for clinical evaluation and their role in uncovering the actual benefits and risks of medical innovation. Essays explore differences in our current systems for evaluating drugs, medical devices, and clinical procedures; health insurance databases as a tool for assessing treatment outcomes; the role of the medical profession, the Food and Drug Administration, and industry in stimulating the use of evaluative methods; and more. This book will be of special interest to policymakers, regulators, executives in the medical industry, clinical researchers, and physicians.




Intervention Research


Book Description

2012 First Place AJN Book of the Year Award Winner in Nursing Research! "This is a resource for success and should be a part of any researcher's library."--Doody's Medical Reviews This book is a practical, user-friendly guide for health care researchers across multiple disciplines who are involved in intervention research. It provides all of the essential elements needed for understanding how to design, conduct, analyze, and fund intervention studies that are replicable and can withstand the scrutiny of the Institutional Review Board and peer review. Developed from an annual continuing education workshop on intervention studies conducted by Dr. Melnyk, this text is the most comprehensive body of information available on this topic. Contributors address the design of interventions that are ethically considerate and sensitive to culture, race/ethnicity, and gender, minimizing threats to external and internal validity, measurement, and budgeting. The guide explores such implementation issues as subject recruitment and retention, data management, and specialized settings, cost analysis, and explaining intervention effects. The text also guides readers in writing grant applications that fund , and addresses how to move intervention study findings into the real world. A unique addition to the book is the availability of digital examples of progress reports, final reports, and research grant applications that have received funding from the National Institutes of Health and other relevant organizations. This text is a valuable resource for all health care professionals conducting research and for doctoral students in health care studies. Key Features: Presents the essential tools for designing, conducting, analyzing, and funding intervention studies Designed for use by health care professionals conducting intervention research Provides comprehensive, accessible guidelines for doctoral students across all health care disciplines Instructs readers on writing grant applications that fund Includes digital examples of funded research grants, progress reports, and final reports




Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes


Book Description

This User’s Guide is intended to support the design, implementation, analysis, interpretation, and quality evaluation of registries created to increase understanding of patient outcomes. For the purposes of this guide, a patient registry is an organized system that uses observational study methods to collect uniform data (clinical and other) to evaluate specified outcomes for a population defined by a particular disease, condition, or exposure, and that serves one or more predetermined scientific, clinical, or policy purposes. A registry database is a file (or files) derived from the registry. Although registries can serve many purposes, this guide focuses on registries created for one or more of the following purposes: to describe the natural history of disease, to determine clinical effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of health care products and services, to measure or monitor safety and harm, and/or to measure quality of care. Registries are classified according to how their populations are defined. For example, product registries include patients who have been exposed to biopharmaceutical products or medical devices. Health services registries consist of patients who have had a common procedure, clinical encounter, or hospitalization. Disease or condition registries are defined by patients having the same diagnosis, such as cystic fibrosis or heart failure. The User’s Guide was created by researchers affiliated with AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program, particularly those who participated in AHRQ’s DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions About Effectiveness) program. Chapters were subject to multiple internal and external independent reviews.




Beyond the HIPAA Privacy Rule


Book Description

In the realm of health care, privacy protections are needed to preserve patients' dignity and prevent possible harms. Ten years ago, to address these concerns as well as set guidelines for ethical health research, Congress called for a set of federal standards now known as the HIPAA Privacy Rule. In its 2009 report, Beyond the HIPAA Privacy Rule: Enhancing Privacy, Improving Health Through Research, the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Health Research and the Privacy of Health Information concludes that the HIPAA Privacy Rule does not protect privacy as well as it should, and that it impedes important health research.




Designing and Conducting Health Surveys


Book Description

Designing and Conducting Health Surveys is written for students, teachers, researchers, and anyone who conducts health surveys. This third edition of the standard reference in the field draws heavily on the most recent methodological research on survey design and the rich storehouse of insights and implications provided by cognitive research on question and questionnaire design in particular. This important resource presents a total survey error framework that is a useful compass for charting the dangerous waters between systematic and random errors that inevitably accompany the survey design enterprise. In addition, three new studies based on national, international, and state and local surveys—the UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, California Health Interview Survey, and National Dental Malpractice Survey—are detailed that illustrate the range of design alternatives available at each stage of developing a survey and provide a sound basis for choosing among them.