The Lewin Group, a healthcare consulting firm, has launched The Lewin Group Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research.
Lewin Group executives say they created the center to meet the growing need for fact-based, comparative effectiveness research for use by policy makers, researchers and healthcare providers to improve patient care and optimize resources.
The center combines Lewin's research and analysis expertise with key capabilities and assets from within Ingenix, the parent company of The Lewin Group.
The center has unique capabilities for conducting and supporting comparative effectiveness research, say Lewin Group executives. It will combine The Lewin Group's independent analysis of health information technology, evidence-based medicine, healthcare policy and other issues, they say. They also point to their affiliate company i3's expertise in clinical trials and study design, drug safety, health economics and outcomes research and Ingenix data.
Through Ingenix, the center will have access to longitudinal de-identified patient data sets including integrated medical, disability, laboratory results and pharmacy claims data. The staff available to the center includes more than 1,200 health services researchers, clinicians, clinical trial design experts, epidemiologists, biostatisticians, health data experts, health economists and others.
Comparative effectiveness research, or CER, compares the safety, effectiveness, cost and other clinical and economic outcomes of healthcare interventions used to prevent, diagnose or treat diseases, disorders and other health conditions. Its findings can be used to support decisions and policies for clinicians, patients, regulatory agencies, third-party payers, healthcare facilities, public health programs, federal and state policy makers and others.
"In consolidating access to our CER expertise, capacity and capabilities from across Ingenix via this center, we are well-equipped to respond to market demands for CER as a better foundation for healthcare policy and decision making," said Clifford Goodman, vice president of The Lewin Group. "Formation of The Lewin Group Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research reflects our commitment to this critical area of research."
Goodman, a recognized expert on CER and health technology assessment, will be the center's interim director and continue as an advisor to the center once a director has been appointed. In addition, Tina Brown-Stevenson, senior vice president of healthcare innovation and information at Ingenix, and William Crown, president of i3's Innovus health economics and outcomes research business, will serve as advisors to the center.
The Ingenix database, used to calculate reimbursement rates by Ingenix's owner, United HealthGroup, and several other key healthcare insurers, came under fire earlier this year. Under a settlement crafted by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who investigated the use of the database, United HealthGroup has agreed to spend $50 million to establish a nonprofit, independent company to replace the database.
