RAND Center of Excellence for the Study of Appropriateness of Care in CAM

Study Summary

The RAND approach to appropriateness makes it feasible to take the best of what is known from research and apply it-using the expertise of experienced clinicians-over the wide range of patients and presentations seen in real-world clinical practice. The major limitation of the RAND approach, however, is that it still utilizes a limited definition of appropriateness; one that relies heavily on safety, efficacy and effectiveness. Until now the RAND method has not included patient preferences or resource utilization effectiveness. These are both serious absences. In the past decade we have seen an evolution in outcome measures from clinician based objective measures to patient-centered and subjective measures. The development of Patient Based Outcome Assessments (PBOA); Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) and the recent establishment of Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) all contest to the growing importance of the patient's perspective in determining outcomes and therefore also appropriateness. In the Center, we propose to advance appropriateness methods by adding three additional dimensions to the RAND appropriateness methods: patient outcomes, patient preferences and cost