and the idea of having knowledge about how things really work is critical to people being able to make informed decisions down the line. That’s really the genesis of how it became important to me as a physician, a patient, and as a father.
X: When did you identify the need for Outcome’s technology and services related to clinical outcomes?
RG: We spun out from a Harvard research lab that was doing work looking at real-world results. It was broad and growing very rapidly in the mid-1990s. Clearly there was a strong academic interest but it was expanding into more outcomes. There wasn’t a strong financial driver to sponsor this type of work or for providers, physicians, or hospitals to collect outcomes data other than for their own interest and desire for improvement.
X: What are some of the most interesting discoveries about certain drugs, devices, or treatments that Outcome’s technology has been used to uncover?
RG: It’s very extensive. It goes from finding potential risk factors in avian flu, finding out who is most likely to survive—not swine flu but bird flu. We’re doing a study all over the world looking at those cases of applying the best science. Also, our registries have looked at what’s the best treatment regimen for stroke. [The American Heart Association in July registered its one-millionth stroke patient into a program that uses Outcome’s patient management technology.] There’s a tremendous amount of information that we’ve gathered about early outcomes of treatments for stroke patients—not just from clinical trials, but now from one million patients in more than 1,000 institutions. You can really start to take a look at the differences in stroke patients depending on how long it take for a victim of stroke to be treated. That can really drive care. How can you apply guidelines for the best treatments based on this information? Can you improve how patients are treated? The answer is yes, and we’re able to improve lives.
X: What are the three or so most significant factors related to policy, industry, and healthcare trends that are fueling your business growth?
RG: There are really three areas that are fueling it. Interest in safety after a drug or device has been approved; interest in effectiveness, meaning how well something works in the real world; and interest in quality of care. In terms of safety, there’s a regulation that has focused on quantifying safe drugs and devices are after approval, so we’ve clearly benefitted from that.
Interest in effectiveness has gained a lot of attention lately, given the focus on comparative effectiveness and how well things work. But that has always been a factor in our business because there are various companies and societies that want to show that drugs or their procedures are as effective as they can be. Now it’s gone to another level, where companies feel they need to show effectiveness to get reimbursement for their products or to get a procedure reimbursed by insurers. So it’s gone from a “nice-to-have” to moving toward a “need-to-have.”
Then there’s quality. We’ve been in this quality measurement arena for some time. We’re certified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as a qualified registry provider to submit quality data for the 2008 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI). That area is growing too because there is tremendous interest in performance and ultimately interest in paying for care based on outcomes.
X: What does the $1.1 billion set aside for comparative effectiveness studies in the stimulus package mean for Outcome Sciences?
RG: It’s huge for us. We’re already working with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and they have a portion of the $1.1 billion. We are currently involved in
