This document discusses outcomes research, which seeks to understand the end results of healthcare practices and interventions. It describes two agencies, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, that focus on outcomes research and fund studies to increase healthcare effectiveness. Both agencies emphasize measures like quality of life and patient preferences. The document also discusses positive and negative impacts of outcomes research, how it assesses elements of health important to patients, and how researchers have developed ways to broadly measure health status.

1. Outcome Research
Maite Ynfantes Rodriguez
MNSNV 601
09/20/2016

2. Introduction
 What is Research Outcomes?
 Outcomes research seeks to understand the end results of particular health
care practices and interventions
 Outcomes research has altered the culture of clinical practice and health
care research by changing how we assess the end results of health care
services.
 In doing so, it has provided the foundation for measuring the quality of
care

3. Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality (AHRQ)
The AHRQ helps to produce evidence to make health care
safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and
affordable
Works to make sure that the evidence is understood and
used.

4. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research
Institute
 CORI funds studies that determine which healthcare options
work best for which patients, given their needs, circumstances,
and preferences.
 Helps patients and those who care for them to make better-
informed health and healthcare decisions.

5. What they have in common?
 Both agencies focus its attention on the affected individual with
measures such as quality of life and preferences
 Both of them promote and/or funding studies that help to increase
effectiveness of health-care delivery

6. Outcomes research with positive impact for patients
and healthcare professionals.
 Studies of the variations in medical practice patterns. Effectiveness
research that assesses which treatments for specific clinical
problems work best for whom.
 Appropriateness studies that determine the circumstances in which
a procedure should and should not be performed.
 Research that develops tools to identify patient preferences when
treatment options are available.
 Research that creates methods to measure changes in health status
and patient satisfaction with the health care process.

7. Negative impact for patients and healthcare professionals
 While Outcomes research evaluates the results of the health care
process in the real-life world of the doctor’s office, hospital,
health clinic and even the home, traditional randomized
controlled studies, are costly and must be done in controlled
environments.
 Traditionally, studies measure health outcomes, in terms of
physiological measurements through laboratory test results,
complication rates or death.
 These measures alone do not adequately capture health status. A
patient’s functional status, well-being, and satisfaction with care
must compliment the traditional measures.

8. Importance of Outcome Research
 It is used as health status measures to assess end results on overall health and
quality of life, in contrast to such outcomes as death, infection rates or hospital
readmission rates.
 Outcomes research emphasizes many more “common” elements of health that
are important to patients and their families.
 Outcomes research has also added a new dimension to the treatment process by
developing ways to assess patients’ preferences for alternative treatment
options.
 Outcomes research is developing communication tools, such as interactive
videos, that allow patients to understand the treatment options available and
the benefits and risks of each.
 One particular challenge has been to develop health status measures for
children, since the importance and nature of their preferences is poorly
understood.

9. Conclusions
Outcomes researchers have successfully
developed ways to measure health status
broadly to capture not only a patient’s physical
health, but also the quality of life and ability to
function in the real world

10. References
 Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality. (2016). Retrieved from
http://www.ahrq.gov/
 Research We Support | PCORI. (2016). Retrieved from
http://www.pcori.org/research-results/research-we-support