How Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Enhances Patient Care
For Zeeshan Butt, PhD, it’s no longer a question of if patient-centered outcomes research improves healthcare outcomes, but how they do so.
Butt, an associate professor of Medical Social Sciences, Surgery, and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, delivered February’s Translational Applications in Public Health lecture in which he focused on “Patient-Centered Outcomes Research at Northwestern: Exemplars and Early Findings.” The lecture series is a collaboration between the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute and the Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM).
Butt, associate director of IPHAM’s Center for Patient-Centered Outcomes and a member of the Team Science program at NUCATS, highlighted three Northwestern research studies that put patient perspective and input at the center of healthcare delivery. The studies, each led by David Cella, PhD, chair of Medical Social Sciences and director of IPHAM’s Center for Patient-Centered Outcomes, explored FDA drug development tools, a bilingual electronic symptom management program, and how to best engage high-need patients.
The presentation highlighted the Center for Patient-Centered Outcomes as a bridge and an incubator for Northwestern researchers whose studies focus on health outcomes that incorporate the centrality and perspective of the patient in order to improve healthcare, access, and decision-making.
The Center is modeled around building relationships among investigators, and it’s my job to help researchers determine which relationships would be most effective for the work they are doing.”
“As associate director, I help to facilitate connections for investigators who are looking for guidance on what next steps to take to achieve their goals,” says Butt. “The Center is modeled around building relationships among investigators, and it’s my job to help researchers determine which relationships would be most effective for the work they are doing.”
Three Exemplars
As part of his presentation on February 3, Butt explained the benefits of Clinical Outcome Assessments (COAs), which are measures used to evaluate the benefits of a certain treatment on a disease, according to patients. The full process by which COAs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is rigorous and can take years. The Department of Medical Social Sciences has developed a number of patient-reported outcomes to help researchers gather patient feedback for this purpose.
In discussing the FDA Core Outcome Set (COS) Pilot Program, which seeks to develop publicly accessible standard core sets of COAs that could apply to multiple treatment contexts, Butt highlighted one use case at Northwestern. The Northwestern University Clinical Outcome Assessment Team is currently investigating how best to assess physical function within clinical drug trials.
Butt also spotlighted the Northwestern University IMPACT Research Center, which strives to find a way to integrate the collection of patient-reported outcomes from hospital patients and Electronic Health Records for use in clinical decision-making.
The final exemplar discussed was the “Engaging High-need Patients to Produce Scalable High-value Healthcare” study, which is a Northwestern Medicine collaborative partnership to develop a clinical dashboard for patients with chronic kidney disease and patients with cancer. The study also includes research to evaluate implementation of this dashboard to improve shared-decision making between patient and provider.
“Showcasing these three studies is a way to provide a broad overview of the center,” says Butt, who is also a member of the NUCATS KL2 Executive Committee and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. “By no means are these the only set of studies focused on patient-centered outcomes, but I instead use them to stimulate new avenues for research and clinical care across the institution.”
Butt plans to continue the search for answers to the question: “How can I ensure that my research and clinical care is more patient-centered?” and encourages fellow healthcare professionals to do the same.
Written by Morgan Frost
