Assessing outcomes of health and medical research: do we measure what counts or count what we can measure?
2007
Measuring the Impact of Health Research
Commentary
Author Information
Author(s): Robert Wells, Judith A Whitworth
Primary Institution: Menzies Centre for Health Policy, The Australian National University
Hypothesis
How should the value of health and medical research best be measured?
Conclusion
Traditional academic metrics of research output are insufficient to demonstrate the societal benefits of public investment in health research.
Supporting Evidence
- Governments worldwide are increasingly demanding outcome measures to evaluate research investment.
- Traditional academic metrics are insufficient to demonstrate societal benefit from public investment in health research.
- New approaches that consider all the benefits of research are needed.
Takeaway
This study talks about how we need better ways to measure the good things that come from health research, not just the easy-to-measure stuff.
Limitations
The study does not provide specific metrics for measuring health outcomes effectively.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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