Ultimately, we work to improve patients lives but traditionally the voice of the patient was not important. However, over the last decades, many stakeholders have shifted to include the patient more in the decision-making process and patients voice their needs and preferences more.

Still capturing and evaluating patient preferences does not belong to the core capabilities of most biostatisticians.

This episode will help you to understand:
  • Why is it important for you to understand patient preferences?
  • What are the different ways, you can collect data on patient preferences?
  • What role do you as a statistician play in this area?
  • Where can we find more information about this topic?
Further reading:

Medical Device Innovation Consortium. 2015. Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC) Patient-Centered Benefit-Risk Project Report: A Framework for Incorporating Information on Patient Preferences Regarding Benefit and Risk in Regulatory Assessments of New Medical Technology.

IMI PREFER looks at how and when it is best to perform and include patient preferences in decision-making during the medical product life cycle. We include patient stakeholders at every level of the project. The result will be recommendations to support the development of guidelines for industry, Regulatory Authorities, and HTA bodies.

United States Food and Drug Administration. 2016b. Patient Preference Information – Voluntary Submission, Review in Premarket Approval Applications, Humanitarian Device Exemption Applications, and De Novo Requests, and Inclusion in Decision Summaries and Device Labeling: Guidance for Industry, Food and Drug Administration Staff, and Other Stakeholders.

Brett Hauber

Brett Hauber, PhD, is a Senior Economist and the Vice President of Health Preference Assessment at RTI HS. He is also an Affiliate Associate Professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Washington. He has more than 20 years of experience in health and environmental economics in academic, research, and government settings. His primary specialty is health preference assessment using discrete-choice experiments and other methods to quantify preferences for medical interventions and health outcomes.

He also has extensive experience in conducting benefit-risk analyses to support regulatory and HTA decisions. Dr. Hauber regularly teaches courses on health preference methods. He was a member of the Patient-Centered Benefit-Risk Steering Committee of the Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC) and was the principal investigator in developing the Catalog of Methods for Assessing Patient Preferences for Benefits and Harms of Medical Technologies for MDIC.

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I want to help the community of statisticians, data scientists, programmers and other quantitative scientists to be more influential, innovative, and effective. I believe that as a community we can help our research, our regulatory and payer systems, and ultimately physicians and patients take better decisions based on better evidence.

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When my kids are sick, I want to have good evidence to discuss with the physician about the different therapy choices.

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