Evaluating the Feasibility of Developing National Outcomes Data Bases to Assist Patients with Marking Treatment Decisions

This report examines the potential for, and range of issues associated with, establishing national health outcomes data bases to help patients and their physicians evaluate tradeoffs among various treatment options. Patients are frequently faced with more than one treatment option and often those treatments have multiple outcomes that need to be understood and evaluated in terms of their risks and benefits to the patient. This work builds on previous Agency for Health care Research and Quality (AHRQ) - sponsored expert meetings funded by the Kanter Family Foundation-which focused on the possibility of developing data systems that would allow patients to share information with other patients about the decisions they had made when confronted with alternative treatment choices and the outcomes they had experienced.