This past May, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) approved five research priority areas: “assessment of prevention, diagnosis and treatment options”; “improving health care systems”; “communication and dissemination”; “disparities”; and, “patient-centered outcomes research and methodological research”. In June PCORI announced 50 pilot project research awards totaling $30 million. PCORI is anticipated to spend $3 billion between now and 2019.

What does it mean to be “patient centered” and what does this then mean about ways of “improving “health care systems” and “communication and dissemination”? PCORI belies its “patient centered” mandate since it has not put a primacy on understanding and improving the interaction between the patient and the provider — the only way the quality of health care delivery is ultimately improved. None of the fifty PCORI pilot projects examine the quality of these interactions. Understanding and improving patient-provider interactions also explains how clinical evidence is produced or becomes meaningful.

See on healthaffairs.org