Conceptualizing and measuring generic health outcomes

A PLEASURE and honor to have the opportunity to I address this conference again. My research does not focus on the cancer field and, in that sense, I am an outsider looking in. I have followed your progress in conceptualizing and measuring health and quality of life in studies of cancer with great interest. In addition to the progress you and the American Cancer Society (ACS) have made in the cancer field, you have helped move medicine toward greater understanding and acceptance of the importance of the patient point of view. I realize that in stressing the importance of monitoring the patient perspective regarding the impact of disease and treatment, I will be "preaching to the converted." However, I want to take this opportunity to push this field even further in directions in which I think it should go and in which we are now more capable of going. 1 plan to take a very broad perspective, broader than on research alone. 1 will consider issues of public policy, the routine monitoring of the outcomes of medical care from the patient point of view in managing health care systems, and the routine use of standardized patient health surveys in everyday medical practice.