Health and Human Services today announced steps HHS can take to advance medical innovations and move products more quickly from the lab bench to the bedside. The recommendations were outlined in a new report: "Moving Medical Innovations Forward — New Initiatives from HHS."
The HHS task force examined internal procedures at agencies across the department, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The report made several specific recommendations:
Improving cooperation with other federal agencies that play a role in medical technology development.
Creating a forum that will serve as a sounding board for investigators and manufacturers to communicate with HHS agencies.
Supporting the ongoing development of standard formats for electronic clinical trial data.
Improving collaboration between CMS and FDA.
Supporting new inter-agency scientific education and cross-training efforts to identify knowledge gaps among those serving in the technology transfer functions in HHS.
