Better integration of data on healthcare outcomes will improve decision-making in health policy and healthcare reimbursement, according to Professor Jan Sorensen, Director of the Healthcare Research Outcomes Centre at RCSI.

Speaking ahead of Ireland’s second National Healthcare Outcomes Conference, Professor Sorensen said that greater efficiency could be achieved if the health service consistently integrated robust outcomes data into its decision-making processes.

“Ireland’s health services continues to struggle to meet multiple and escalating resource demands and there is much debate relating to appropriate access to diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. The only sustainable approach to the dilemma of increasing demands in a resource-constrained system is to base decision-making and resource allocation on clear outcomes based criteria. If the system doesn’t get to grips with this now, it will face even greater challenges as Ireland’s population gets older.”

The conference facilitated a discussion about the value as well as challenges of integrating healthcare outcomes data in health policy, healthcare decision-making and healthcare procurement. The conference also aimed to better connect patients’ experience of a healthcare outcome, with perceptions of the outcomes from the perspective of clinicians and policy-makers.

Prof. Sorensen said: “It is never easy for a clinician or policy maker to make a decision which compares the needs of one group of patients with another. Yet that is a decision that is made every day in healthcare. Only by using robust information on outcomes can those decisions be made fairly and with the interests of all users of the health service in mind.”

The Healthcare Outcomes Research Centre (HORC) at RCSI is a leading Irish research centre dedicated to the development and dissemination of evidence-based research on healthcare outcomes that will inform healthcare policy and improve patient outcomes.