Dr. Sean Tunis, President & CEO of the Center for Medical Technology Policy will appear on BioCentury This Week, Sunday, June 2. The episode will highlight the benefits and risks of electronic medical records.

Protecting patients from dangerous, unethical experiments is at the core of the rules governing medical research. These rules and procedures, like informed consent and institutional review boards, draw a bright line between routine medical care and scientific inquiry.

Now, some medical ethicists, government officials and academic researchers say it’s time to rethink the rules.

In the era of electronic medical records, they say every episode of care can be captured and used to document when treatment actually works, identify patients where outcomes can be improved, and continuously change the practice of medicine for the better.

In these “Learning Healthcare Systems,” every patient could be a research subject.

On Sunday, June 2, BioCentury This Week television explored the benefits and risks, the practical applications and the moral questions posed by this new approach to healthcare. The episode features:
•Dr. Joel Kupersmith, Chief Research and Development Officer of the Veterans Health Administration, which operates as a learning healthcare system for the more than 6 million people under the VA’s care.
•Dr. Sean Tunis, President & CEO of the Center for Medical Technology Policy, and former Chief Medical Officer at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
•Dr. Claudia Grossmann, Senior Program Officer at the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Value & Science-Driven Health Care.