Last week, the IVI team traveled to the Washington, D.C. area for the 2022 ISPOR Annual Conference, and we were absolutely thrilled to see so many of you in person. It reminded us of the ‘why’ we do our work and how much we appreciate partnering with each of you. Even with the ongoing challenges of COVID-19, we were inspired to find more ways to connect in the coming months.

This year, IVI co-presented at multiple sessions and were excited about the energy brought to the conference. We wanted to share with you some of the themes we heard during the meeting.

Let’s make sure HEOR is relevant. Incoming Board Chair and IVI member, Jan Hanssen, talked about how the HEOR field needs to demonstrate its impact on healthcare decisions. We completely agree and IVI is well positioned to continue our leadership role in this area.

What is HEOR?

HEOR stands for health economics and outcomes research. It is the measurement and valuing of outcomes and effects in healthcare interventions on patients to provide data and insights for healthcare decision-makers.

What is value assessment anyhow? We need to improve how we tell the story of value assessment and what it means for each stakeholder group – especially people living with serious health conditions. IVI’s 2021 infographic is a starting point, but we need more clarity.

Patient-centeredness sounds good in theory. But, the practice of patient-centered value assessment still has far to go. We were so pleased to include people with lived experience on our panel discussion, “Engage for What? – Rethinking the Purpose of Stakeholder Engagement in Healthcare Research and Health Technology Assessment (HTA),” on Wednesday, and we are actively seeking more ways to ensure that people with lived experience are full partners with us in research.

Health Equity needs to be more than just talk. Many of our partners and colleagues are drilling into better understanding how to incorporate health equity into healthcare economics, and we were thrilled to share the launch of the IVI Health Equity Initiative. We are committed to testing new methods for value assessment and patient preference research that drill into the details advancing principles of health equity. If you are interested in connecting with us or learning more, please contact us at info@thevalueinitiative.org.

Continue to build partnerships. As we move forward with the development of the IVI-MDD model, we are seeing more and more areas for collaboration with colleagues at ISPOR, as well as in the broader research and patient communities.

Here are a few pictures of our events last week. Let’s continue to connect both in person and across the internet. If you are not already a member of IVI, we invite you to become a partner in our community. You can learn more about membership on our website.

About IVI

The Innovation and Value Initiative is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization committed to advancing the science, practice, and use of value assessment in healthcare through collaboration among thought leaders in academia, patient organizations, payers, life science firms, providers, delivery systems and other organizations.

If you enjoy reading our blog posts and interested in learning more about IVI or becoming a member, please contact Erica Malik at erica.malik@thevalueinitiative.org.

You can also find information on our membership webpage.