24 February 2016
The University of South Australia’s Institute for Choice (I4C) and Sansom Institute for Health Research are collaborating to present a national forum to look at the role of patient voices in planning health care and treatment.
The forum, A room with a patient view, will be held at Doltone House, Hyde Park, Sydney on February 25 and 26 and will bring together representatives from pharmaceuticals manufacturers, patient advocates and researchers to discuss the issues.
Pro Vice Chancellor Business and Law, UniSA Business School, Professor Marie Wilson says the aim of the forum is to develop and formalise a framework to incorporate broader patient-driven perspectives in the health care decision-making process.
“Researchers at the University’s Institute for Choice have been working to develop a health care decision-making model that allows a comprehensive and step-by-step evaluation of both medicines and treatments,” Prof Wilson says.
“The model is adaptable and allows patients to explore and evaluate a complex array of choices dependent on what treatment or medication is being considered, its impacts and side effects, the costs of the treatment and how it may impact lifestyle.
“This is especially valuable because the tool can represent the inputs of individual patients and can be engaged for every phase of product development, from drug and treatment development, right through to commercialisation and application in the field.”
Director of UniSA’s Sansom Institute and Dean of Research Prof Ian Olver says the forum is an important opportunity to bring together industry and health care consumers to explore the best ways to ensure the patient voice is heard.
“As the nation faces increasingly difficult decisions about which treatments or medications it can afford to bring on board or subsidise, it is more important than ever that we develop a better way to consider the needs of patients and health care consumers,” Prof Olver says.
“This new tool gives insights into consumers’ values and preferences in a much more refined way than we have employed in the past, where the data considered had been based on past patient experiences rather than what patients would choose given an array of options.
“The forum will now provide an important opportunity for industry, academia and patient groups to discuss methodologies and approaches for really understanding the patient perspective on the value of medicines and at the same time increase patient engagement in health technology assessment (HTA) in Australia and the complex choices made about health care every day.
“Ultimately if we can develop and formalise a framework to incorporate a broader patient-driven perspectives into the health care decision-making processes we will have made a very important step forward.”
The forum includes presentations from a number of international and local experts including David Grainger, Global Policy Director, Eli Lilly and Company; Anindita Saha, Director of External Expertise and Partnerships at the FDA’s Centre for Devices and Radiological Health; Haley Anderson, CEO of Melanoma Patients Australia; Elizabeth Carrigan CEO of the Australian Pain Management Association, Chair of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) and Director of Sydney University’s Menzies centre for Health Policy, Prof Andrew Wilson.
It will feature three key workshops focussed on patient, industry and government/academic/clinician perspectives and close with a summary session with recommendations for change.
The forum is being sponsored by Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson and Johnson, Roche, Novartis, MSD, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and AMGEN.
Media contact: Michèle Nardelli office +61 883020966 mob 0418823673 email michele.nardelli@unisa.edu.au
