Dr. John M. Eisenberg, the new administrator of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, discussed the future of AHCPR in Saturday's Chicago Tribune. The agency "was nearly destroyed after it published a guideline saying that most spinal surgery for back pain was unnecessary." The Tribune reports that "[s]urgeons who performed back surgery didn't like the guideline and organized a campaign to have Congress gut the federal group."
Since that time, the agency has gotten out of the business of publishing guidelines, but, according to Eisenberg, "is reinventing itself in ways that will give it an even bigger voice in improving health care in America."
In a Q & A interview, Eisenberg said the agency's "mission is to provide the tools, talent and the teams that are needed to improve health care quality. We need to translate the research that we have about what works and what doesn't work into action. It's terribly frustrating when you look at the science that we know and the science that we practice and see how far apart they are."
Eisenberg also touted the 12 new Evidence-based Practice Program centers that the agency announced last week as a way to find out "what works and what doesn't work" and to translate that to the private sector.
When asked what the agency could do to help consumers make better choices in the era of managed care, Eisenberg replied, "What's already starting to happen is that the public is asking for information about the quality and effectiveness of care provided by health plans. The public needs to know how well health plans do, how well doctors do and how well hospitals do. If we're going to have a market-driven health care system, we've got to have information that allows patients to choose."
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