LINCOLN, R.I., April 15 /PRNewswire/ -- QualityMetric CEO and founder, John E. Ware Jr., PhD, established the Office of Grants and Scholarly Research (OGSR) in 2004 to ensure that researchers and students had the resources to study and measure health outcomes regardless of their ability to pay. Four years later, no one could have anticipated how the demand for these tools would grow and expand around the globe. In the last two years, 2,232 requests were received for use of the SF-36v2(R), SF-12v2(R), and SF-8(TM) Health Surveys in 90 different countries, a 72 percent increase from the first year of the program.
"One of my favorite OGSR stories involves a PhD-candidate from India," related James E. Dewey, PhD, QualityMetric's Chief Innovation and Research Officer. "He was studying the quality of life of a group of patients diagnosed with chikungunya fever and wanted to use the SF-36 Health Survey."
The student, Prasad Kumar, was self-funding this 160-patient study and did not have the financial means to afford even our OGSR discounted license and user manual fee. Kumar explained that his father was paying for his education and that as a middle school teacher his salary just barely made this possible. Ware and Dewey immediately agreed to provide the survey and user manual at no charge, even paying for the shipping fees to India.
A lesser-known fact about QualityMetric's suite of SF Health Surveys is that there are 108 language translations now available. For example, in multi-lingual India, the SF-36(R) Health Survey is available in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.
"This is one of the many reasons QualityMetric's patient-reported outcome surveys have become so widely-used around the world," says Ware. "The availability of these surveys in so many languages, their scientific-validity, and the fact that they are scored along a standardized metric, means that those studying health outcomes and those treating patients can compare their results across disease conditions and geographic boundaries."
QualityMetric is committed to helping their neighbors closer to home as well. We all know too well the loss of life, property damage, and other hardships caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And, while the impact on scientific research does not register high on the list, researchers did have medical outcomes studies disrupted by the storm. Data was lost, study periods had to be changed, and educational materials were destroyed. OGSR made every effort to extend licensing agreements to these students and researchers and provide new user manuals and educational materials to them -- all at no cost.
QualityMetric created OGSR to support the study of outcomes in the academic research community by subsidizing the costs using revenues from for-profit uses of the survey tools. OGSR acts as a liaison with researchers and students, government agencies, and members of http://www.SF-36.org. Survey users must obtain permission to administer these copyrighted instruments, which are granted on a per study basis. Royalty-free access to surveys may be accompanied by modest overhead charges to process the permission application. Additional support is provided to the academic community through reduced pricing for scoring software and educational materials, including the "User's Manual for the SF-36v2 Health Survey -- Second Edition."
For academic researchers and students interested in learning more about OGSR, please visit http://www.qualitymetric.com/advancing.
About QualityMetric:
QualityMetric Incorporated works with the world's largest healthcare and life sciences companies to measure health outcomes. Our products help market new drugs and biologics, track health improvement or decline, screen populations for disease, and identify future health risks. QualityMetric's patient-reported outcome (PRO) surveys provide scientifically valid assessments of both physical and mental health. Our PROs include the SF-36v2(R), SF-12v2(R), and SF-8(TM) Health Surveys, SF-10(TM) Health Survey for Children, Asthma Control Test (ACT(TM)), Pain Impact Questionnaire (PIQ-6(TM)), and DYNHA(R) Dynamic Health Assessments. Our Outcomes Insight Consulting(TM) Group can develop customized PROs and provide in-depth analysis of the results. QualityMetric's founder and CEO, John E. Ware Jr., PhD is a thought-leader in the field of psychometrics and health outcome measurement. Visit us at http://www.qualitymetric.com
SOURCE QualityMetric
