New academic initiative aims to inform approaches to value assessment frameworks

As the U. S. health care market continues to shift toward a system that prioritizes and rewards value, there is increasing attention on the development and use of value assessment frameworks. When well-structured and used appropriately, frameworks to assess the value of medical tests, treatments and health care services can be useful in the private market to support patient-centered health care. However, as the number of emerging value frameworks continues to grow, we are seeing great variability in the methods and approaches being used, as well as significant issues related to the process through which frameworks are developed.

To help reduce this inconsistency, The International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) recently announced its Initiative on Value Assessment Frameworks to bring together stakeholders across the health care sector to create a set of standards to guide the development of patient-centered value frameworks. The initiative has two phases:

• Phase I involves identifying and discussing “key methodological and process issues in defining and applying value frameworks.”
• Phase II convenes a special task force that will produce a white paper advising on “the appropriate definition and use of high-quality value frameworks.”

To kick off phase one, ISPOR issued a call for papers to be included in a special issue on high-quality value assessment of health care interventions in the January 2017 issue of Value in Health. Examples of topics being requested include measurement of value and indirect benefits, incorporating patient-centered outcomes and establishing affordability thresholds, among others.

For more information about the call for papers, please visit the ISPOR website.

Read more about PhRMA’s value assessment principles and why ICER’s model doesn’t meet patients’ needs here.