Healthcare Innovation in the 21st Century: HHS’ Dynamic Role in the Biomedical and Device Development Process.

On November 14, Deputy Secretary Troy hosted a conference on healthcare innovation. The conference featured presentations from senior officials from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will highlight each agency’s role in facilitating the development of innovative medical technologies. Topics discussed included:

• The role of basic and clinical research conducted and supported by the NIH in the development of new products;
• FDA’s efforts to use state-of-the art science in support of medical product development, as well as to promote consistency and efficiency in medical product review;
• CMS’ perspective on the challenges innovators face in current reimbursement and coverage processes and how innovators can better navigate the system; and
• AHRQ’s role in promoting quality research and value exchanges and how these benefit innovators.

Resources

• AHRQ: Helping Organizations Innovate and Adopt New Ideas Fact sheet
• CMS: Funding the Innvators of Today and Tomorrow Fact sheet
• FDA: Paving the Pathway for Innovation Fact Sheet
• NIH: Investing in Innovation Through Research
• Critical Path Initiative
• Sentinel Initiative
• FDA activities in 2007
• Contact Information for the Office of Critical Path Programs: FDAcriticalpathprogram@fda.hhs.gov
• The Innovators’ Guide to Navigating CMS
• The Effective Health Care Program  is dedicated to facilitating decision-making by providing findings from high-quality research in formats for different audiences
• Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes: A User's Guide serves as a guide to the design, implementation, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of the quality of a registry for understanding patient outcomes.
• The National Guideline Clearinghouse is a public resource for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines: www.ngc.gov.
• The National Quality Measures Clearinghouse is a public repository for evidence-based quality measures and to www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov
• The Health Care Innovations Exchange is a program designed to support health care professionals in sharing and adopting innovations that improve the delivery of care to patients.