§299b–5 Health Care Practice and Technology Innovation

Summary

The Director must promote new, proven health care practices and technologies. They must research how health care technology is made and used, create and share ways to judge practices and technology, run or fund studies of current and new tools, teach and help people use the study methods and results, and work with the National Library of Medicine and others to build an online list of available and in-progress assessments. By December 31, 2000, the Director must publish a description of the methods the Agency and its contractors use. The Director must consult with the Assistant Secretary for Health, the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, other federal leaders, and ask for input from professional groups. When making methods, the Director must consider safety and effectiveness, legal and ethical issues, costs and benefits, comparisons to other options, and FDA approval needs to avoid duplicate work. The Director must do or pay for assessments for agencies like CMS, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Office of Personnel Management, and can fund or contract with suitable groups (for example, academic centers, research groups, professional organizations, payers, government agencies, minority colleges, or research consortia). The Director must also develop and share a report on evidence-based clinical care for examining and treating sexual assault victims (including child molestation) and on training health workers to do medical evidence exams for child abuse or neglect, sexual assault, elder abuse, or domestic violence, in consultation with the Health Resources and Services Administration. In choosing what to cover, the Director must, when possible, get advice from federal and state law enforcement and from medical and victim service organizations.