August 2008: Highlights of the Roundtable's recent activities. Please sign up on the link to the right to receive email updates.                                                            

• Infrastructure workshop: The workshop, Learning What Works: Infrastructure and Clinical Priorities for Learning Which Care is Best, was held on July 29-30, 2008 to explore infrastructure needed for a substantially expanded capacity for comparative effectiveness research. Participants discussed and clarified the nature of the work; assessed future capacity needs related to workforce, research method innovation, data linkage and improvement, and coordination of efforts.

• Engineering a learning healthcare system workshop: On April 29-30, 2008, in collaboration with the National Academy of Engineering, the Roundtable will convene the workshop, Engineering a Learning Healthcare System: A Look at the Future. The workshop, hosted at the Keck Building of the National Academies in Washington, DC, will evaluate a variety of engineering approaches to addressing health system complexities and failures. Through breakout discussions, it identified possible actions to facilitate change.

• Evidence communication innovation collaborative: The third meeting of the Collaborative was held on April 7, 2008. Participants discussed the recommendations of an internal working group on the scope of work, objectives, and strategies for the Collaborative’s work.  Specific project proposals were also discussed.

• Roundtable meeting follow-up: The fifth Roundtable Meeting was held on March 20, 2008 and featured a presentation and discussion of health issues in an electoral context by Geoff Garin of Peter D. Hart Associates and the comments of Representative Jim Cooper (TN). Members also reviewed progress on Roundtable activities to date and discussed priorities for future work.

• Clinical data access and use workshop follow up:  Publication of a summary from the February 2008 workshop, Clinical Data as the Basic Staple of Health Learning: Creating and Protecting a Public Good, is anticipated for fall 2008. Initial follow-up activities from the workshop are underway.

• Best practices innovation collaborative:  A panel of clinicians has identified an initial selection of practices which, if applied fully, might yield significant health and economic benefits. The group will continue to refine and develop the “use cases” for each of the identified conditions. Their work will be discussed at a Roundtable workshop in September 2008.

• Priority Assessment Inventory update: A small group of participants, nominated by the Roundtable members for their clinical expertise, are engaged in the identification of priority areas for clinical effectiveness research. A preliminary list of research studies has been developed and, in the coming months, the group will assess opportunities for study conduct and support.