Effective reporting requires health journalists to be comfortable independently evaluating clinical studies and drawing their own conclusions about data. If you just rely on information from press releases, it’s akin to committing “journalistic malpractice,” as AHCJ Vice President Ivan Oransky often warns.
A new tip sheet from Bonny P. McClain adds to this fountain of knowledge. McClain explores why and how The International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) can be a valuable partner in navigating our complex and ever-changing health system.
ISPOR’s annual conference featured more than 1,800 sessions related to value in drug therapies and outcomes. McClain focuses on some of the key sessions dealing with value frameworks and data visualization. The summaries and resource links offer journalists another launch pad to improve their understanding of medical studies, how to report on results and ideas to make data more interesting and relevant to readers.
AHCJ offers other resources to assist journalists in understanding clinical data. The Medical Studies core topic is one place to turn for informative commentary and examples of quality (and not-so-quality) studies. The most recent Health Journalism 2017 featured a great session on reporting on medical studies, lead by topic leader Tara Haelle, Oransky and Gary Schwitzer of HealthnewsReview.org.
