Unique New Medical Journal Premiers this Year

PHOENIX, AZ, May 22, 2007-Wolters Kluwer Health, a global provider of drug and medical information services and content to the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, today announced plans to launch The Patient-Patient Centered Outcomes Research, a groundbreaking, peer-reviwed medical journal that puts the spotlight on patient-centered medicine. This is the first international medical journal dedicated to using the scientific method for accessing patient perspective of therapy and medical technology. The premier issue is due later this year and will initially be published on a quarterly basis.

Also announced today at the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) annual meeting, John F.P. Bridges, PhD, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an international authority on health outcomes research, was named founding editor. A leading proponent of patient-centered approaches to medicine, Dr. Bridges won the ISPOR Bernie O’Brien New Investigator Award last year for his unique perspective on the field.

“At the most fundamental level, our goal is to empower the patient,” said John F.P. Bridges, Ph. D., Editor, The Patient. “In the past, we simply looked at ways to make the patient well. Today, there’s a shift to a more holistic approach that looks at the process of treating the patient rather than solely at the outcome. In the end, we’re going to help make medicine better for the patient.”

Interest in patient-centered approaches is growing at a rapid pace, as is the body of scientific research on the topic. According to a recent study by Dr. Bridges, there has been exponential growth in the number of studies focusing on patient preferences in medicine over the last decade. For example, the number of conjoint analyses published in medical journals has grown from one every couple of years a decade ago, to over 20 per year today. The Patient was created to address an unmet area of outcomes research by providing a specialized forum and outlet to help the field flourish.