US Cochrane Center Conference on Priority Setting
for Systematic Reviews

(1:15 - 2:30 pm) Plenary: The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) rationale and principles for prioritizing systematic reviews
Chair: Kay Dickersin - Director, US Cochrane Center

• Speaker: Hal Sox - Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine
• Discussant: Prioritizing Evidence Syntheses - Sharon Straus - University of Calgary, Canada

(3:00 - 5:00 pm) Methods to Prioritize Systematic Reviews: Case Studies I
Chair: Steve Goodman - Johns Hopkins Oncology Biostatistics

• AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program - Evelyn Whitlock - Kaiser Permanente, Oregon
• The UK’s National Health Service R&D and Department of Health Programmes - Martin Burton - Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust
• The Cochrane Collaboration - Lorne Becker - Co-Chair, Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group
• Canada’s Approach: Canadian Institutes of Health Research - Ian Graham - Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Friday, July 11, 2008

(8:30 - 10:00 am) Plenary debate: Models of priority setting for systematic reviews of clinical effectiveness
Chair: Lisa Bero - University of California San Francisco

• Let 1000 flowers bloom: Support for the current “system” - Doug McCrory - Duke University Medical School
• Both prioritization and review production should be centralized - Gail Wilensky - Project Hope
• Discussant: How can we leverage the best of these two models? A hybrid model of centralized priority setting - Sally Morton - Research Triangle Institute

(10:15 am - 12:00 pm) Panel: Knotty problems related to review prioritization
Chair: Nananda Col - Maine Medical Center

• Meaningful engagement of decision makers in priority-setting- Sean Tunis - Center for Medical Technology Policy
• Considering adverse effects in prioritising reviews - Andrew Herxheimer - Cochrane Collaboration Adverse Effects Methods Group
• A mid flight correction: setting priorities - David Moher - University of Ottawa
• Incorporating systematic reviews into other systematic reviews: Can we save time and be valid? - Evelyn Whitlock - Kaiser Permanente, Oregon

(1:00 - 2:15 pm) Methods to Prioritize Systematic Reviews: Case Studies II
Chair: Luis Gabriel Cuervo - Pan American Health Organization

• Drug Effectiveness Review Project - Alison Little - Oregon Health & Science University
• The James Lind Alliance and I - Lester Firkins - James Lind Alliance
• Centers for Disease Control & Prevention Community Guide - Shawna Mercer -Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(2:30 - 3:30 pm) Open Discussion: Working together or working apart: Cross-group cooperation in priority setting
Chair: Eric Bass - Johns Hopkins University Department of General Internal Medicine

• Jean Slutsky - Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
• Lisa Bero University of California San Francisco