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Invited Commentary
October 2016

Patient-Centered Outcomes Research—Opportunities for Novel, Innovative, and Transformative Partnerships With Patients and Their Families

Author Affiliations
  • 1Palliative Care and Pain Program, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland
  • 2Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland
  • 3Department of Surgery and Oncology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland
JAMA Surg. 2016;151(10):945-946. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2016.1321

The US Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 established the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), a national nonprofit to fund patient-centered comparative effectiveness research and extend “the concept of patient-centeredness from health care delivery to health care research.”1(p1513) As defined by PCORI, patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) is “the evaluation of questions and outcomes meaningful and important to patients and caregivers.”1(p1513) Since late 2012, PCORI has directed more than $1 billion into nearly 700 projects in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.2 At least 10 surgical projects are currently funded and range from patient-reported outcomes across different types of bariatric surgery3 to advance care planning before major cancer surgery,4 with some groups already publishing results.5

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