Database to offer one-stop shopping for treatment options

Two groups are working to create a national database to help patients and physicians determine the best approaches to various diseases.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. April 9, 2001.

Three years ago, Joseph Kanter went searching for a cure after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

However, he found more confusion than answers.

The Miami developer said some physicians told him to watch and wait; others waffled between radiation and surgery. Urologists and medical centers such as Johns Hopkins could not agree on the best treatment.

"I got different things from different people," said Kanter, who eventually decided on radiation and is winning his battle with cancer.

Kanter now wants to help patients and physicians make the best treatment decisions based on scientific research. To that end, his Washington, D.C.-based Kanter Family Foundation is partnering with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in hopes of establishing the National Health Outcomes Database project.

The database would improve health care decision-making by allowing patients and physicians to tap into evidence-based information and health outcomes research, organizers said. The data would enable them to decide which treatments work best for specific diseases and outcomes.

"I noticed that the physicians did not have easily accessible, statistically reliable health outcomes data. If they don't have it, they can't give it to me," Kanter said.

Physicians likely would use the Internet to access the database during patient office visits.

"Patients and clinicians can sit down together and find out the answer to a question," said Carolyn Clancy, MD, director of AHRQ's Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research. [...]