§299b–5 Health Care Practice and Technology Innovation

Summary

Require the Director to help bring forward safe, proven health care practices and new medical technology. The Director must fund and do research on how health technology is developed and used. The Director must create, test, and share ways to judge health care practices and tools, do both in-house and outside reviews, teach and give technical help on using these review methods and results, and work with the National Library of Medicine plus public and private groups to build an online collection of completed and ongoing reviews. The Director must write and publish a clear explanation of the Agency’s review methods by December 31, 2000, after talking with the Assistant Secretary for Health, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, other federal agencies, and outside experts. When making methods, the Director must look at safety and effectiveness, legal and social issues, costs and benefits, comparisons with other options, and avoid repeating FDA work. The Director must also run or support specific technology reviews, can do paid reviews for agencies like CMS, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Office of Personnel Management, and may fund or contract with qualified groups (such as medical centers, research groups, professional societies, payers, minority colleges, and consortia). Finally, the Director must produce and share a report on evidence-based exams and care for sexual assault victims and on training for medical evidence exams in cases like child abuse, elder abuse, and domestic violence, consulting the Health Resources and Services Administration and other experts.