National Working Group on Evidence-Based Health Care Releases Paper

New resource designed to increase patient/consumer inclusion

Consumer perspectives are essential to high-quality treatment, yet consumers are often left out of the decision-making process from the development of services to their delivery. But now there’s a tool advocates can use to promote patient/consumer inclusion that was just released by the National Working Group on Evidencebased Health Care, a collaboration of nearly 50 patient and provider organizations founded by Mental Health America.

Rebalancing Evidence-Based Healthcare: The Central Role of Patients and Consumers is designed to help ensure meaningful patient/consumer involvement in governance bodies, the development of sound research studies, and the dissemination of evidence-based health care initiatives.

Free of charge (download from www.evidencebasedhealthcare.org), this paper outlines the Working Group’s call to action for the evidence-based health care community. It also offers principles for patient/consumer inclusion and a checklist for ensuring that the patient/consumer perspective is a valued part of the evidence-based health care equation.

In January 2006, Mental Health America convened the Working Group to address challenges and raise concerns associated with the emerging evidence-based health care trend.

Some top line concerns include the lack of public awareness about growing initiatives; the lack of inclusion of diverse patient/consumer representatives on advisory bodies; the absence of transparent processes that ensure input from patient/consumer viewpoints; and the use of methodologies that oversimplify conclusions about the effectiveness of health technologies and overlook the racial, ethnic, gender and age gaps in the current research base.

To date, almost 50 organizations that represent a diverse cadre of consumers, caregivers, practitioners and researchers—such as the American Diabetes Association, Latino Health Advocacy Association, Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America and the National Medical Association—have joined Mental Health America’s cause to ensure greater consumer focus on national and state initiatives seeking to promote a better quality of care.

A core activity is the review, interpretation and dissemination of scientific research. Consumers, providers and policymakers are actively using this information to make decisions about health care delivery and coverage.

To download this paper and for more information about the Working Group, visit www.evidencebasedhealthcare.org.