PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA—In this era of healthcare reform, public and private payers and health insurers are scrutinizing costs and being forced to make tough decisions affecting patients and their own financial status. With an array of new technologies clamoring for attention, knowing which ones to focus on can be a challenge.
Helping to answer critical questions being asked by health plans around the country, ECRI Institute® (www.ecri.org), an independent nonprofit that researches the best approaches to improving patient care, announces the release of its list of top seven technologies for 2010 that insurers and other payers should be paying close attention to now.
ECRI Institute’s Health Plan Watch List: 2010 Top 7 Technologies, available for free download, addresses important questions posed to the Institute from many payers over the past year, and includes commentary from our experts on comparative effectiveness, economic pressures, evidence-based patient outcomes research, and other considerations important for evidence-based policy making.
The final 7 list includes today’s hottest technologies and technology-related issues spanning a variety of clinical and operational areas.
“Understanding the evidence for comparative clinical effectiveness of increasingly expensive health technologies and whether they provide better value are key issues for health plan executives and those running public programs,” says Jeffrey C. Lerner, PhD, president and CEO, ECRI Institute. “Objective, technically accurate guidance is hard to find and we intend to help fill this gap effectively.”
Four of the technologies on ECRI Institute’s top 7 watch list for health plans include:
1) Genetic Testing: What Do Health Plans Need to Know and Do?
2) Premium CT and Ultra-high-field MRI: When Is It Necessary?
3) Orthopedic Physician Preference Items: What Are the Real Costs and Where Is the Evidence?
4) Radiation Oncology’s Competing Modalities: Do Any Rise to the Top?
In creating its first annual health plan watch list, ECRI Institute drew upon its 40 years of experience in researching the safety, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of health technologies and its work in comparative effectiveness and health technology assessment by its Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) staff of clinicians, scientists, and other mission-driven professionals.
For a complete list of the top 7 technologies, including overviews and perspectives, download the complimentary white paper, Health Plan Watch List: 2010 Top 7 Technologies, on ECRI Institute’s Web site at https://www.ecri.org/Forms/Pages/Top_Technologies_Health_Plans.aspx