Recognition May 2018

• Yeung received best paper of the year award from JMCP
• Miglioretti named Fellow & paper earns award

Kai Yeung received best paper of the year award from Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy

KPWHRI Assistant Investigator Kai Yeung, PharmD, PhD, received the best paper of the year award from the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy (JMCP) for his paper: Using performance-based risk-sharing arrangements to address uncertainty in indication-based pricing. The paper was first published in October 2017. Dr. Yeung’s co-authors include Meng Li, MS, and Josh Carlson, PhD, of the University of Washington Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy Program.

A synopsis of the winning paper:

The rise in pharmaceutical expenditures in recent years has increased health care payer interest in ensuring good value for the money. Indication-based pricing (IBP) sets separate, indication-specific prices paid to the manufacturer according to the expected efficacy of a drug in each of its indications. IBP allows payers to consistently pay for value across indications.

While promising, a limitation of IBP as originally conceived is that efficacy estimates are typically based on clinical trial data, which may differ from real-world effectiveness. An outcomes guarantee is a type of performance-based risk-sharing arrangement that adjusts payments according to prospectively tracked outcomes.

We illustrate the potential of an outcomes guarantee to achieve indication-based prices aligned with real-world value, using a case study of trastuzumab for the treatment of metastatic breast and advanced gastric cancers. We show that, like expected value IBP, outcomes guarantee contracts can also vary payment based on indication. In addition, an outcomes guarantee can also reduce uncertainty regarding effectiveness and better align payment with the actual value of a treatment.

Diana Miglioretti named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association; breast cancer paper earns award from European Society of Radiology

Diana Miglioretti, Senior Investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute and University of California Davis Dean’s Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Public Health Sciences, has been selected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

Dr. Miglioretti will be announced as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) on Tuesday, July 31, 2018 at the Vancouver Convention Center during the Joint Statistical Meetings awards ceremony. ASA fellow nominees are nominated by their ASA-member peers. To be selected, nominees must have an established reputation and have made outstanding contributions to statistical science.

ASA is the world’s largest community of statisticians; the “Big Tent for Statistics.” Founded in 1839, it is the second-oldest, continuously operating professional association in the United States.

Dr. Miglioretti was also awarded “Best Scientific Paper Presentation 2018 within the topic 'Breast'” for her presentation, “Risk-based strategies for supplemental breast cancer screening” at the 2018 European Congress of Radiology (ECR) held in Vienna, Austria February 28–March 4. The award was based on scientific content, quality of presentation, and overall impression of performance.

The European Society of Radiology (ESR) is the largest radiological society in the world and its annual international conference is one of the leading events in radiology with nearly 30,000 participants from 137 different countries in 2018.