Strategic Plan

ISPOR, the leading society in health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), launched a Strategic Plan in 2016. When the plan was developed, ISPOR was successful and growing exponentially, but it lacked a solid infrastructure, governance, and traditional association processes that would be required for future success. Infrastructure investments in governance, structures, systems, product and communication strategies, staff, and other business elements were required to evolve a more professional member and support organization capable of channeling knowledge and member engagement toward strategic objectives.

The Strategic Plan authors understood the magnitude of organizational development needed for the rapidly growing ISPOR, therefore plan objectives were largely focused on longer-term initiatives and important foundational work.

The 2016-2019 plan included a significant shift in ISPOR’s mission from its original focus on pharmacoeconomics to health economics and outcomes research. This Strategic Plan also directed significant efforts to engage new stakeholders in ISPOR, including patients, clinicians, and payers. Additionally, it included plans to redesign the Society’s governance mechanisms to stimulate more diverse participation in councils, committees, and other member activities.

During the implementation of the 2016-2019 Strategic Plan, ISPOR expanded its investments in mission-related activities fourfold. This included increased financial support for chapters and members in low- and-middle-income countries (LMICs), investments in patient engagement, and in enhanced dialogue with decision makers, related societies, and other groups. ISPOR’s initiatives in support of the advancement of HEOR in LMICs are summarized on the Society’s website.

ISPOR also significantly upgraded its website, increased communication strategies, and launched new branding for the Society and its products. To identify and communicate about the impact the Society is making globally, ISPOR began surveying stakeholder groups, starting with members and then moving to payers and assessors.

Since 2016, ISPOR’s influence has increased, resulting in significant growth in its global events and elevated prominence of its Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Roundtables, Patient Engagement Roundtables, and other collaborations. Highly respected, significantly utilized ISPOR good research practices and other reports increased in number and utilization. The performance of Value and Health—ISPOR’s flagship journal—continued to grow during this time, its reputation and relevance reflected in an impressive increase in its impact factor. Throughout the 2016-2019 Strategic Plan, ISPOR began to examine its role in the healthcare system and advanced work on value frameworks and real-world evidence. At the same time, business plans for new stakeholder areas, such as medical device and digital areas, were initiated.

With much of the 2016-2019 Strategic Plan’s foundational work completed, in 2018 ISPOR embarked on a Strategic Plan update, described herein. In this planning process, ISPOR surveyed members and other stakeholder groups, such as payers and assessors, to identify major opportunities for the Society, including taking a leadership role for HEOR globally, accelerating development of good research practices and updates, communicating to an expanded set of stakeholders, developing new membership segments and a pipeline of future members and leaders, building relationships with decision makers and influencers, and articulating how ISPOR is impacting complex healthcare system issues. A member work group was formed to write a white paper to articulate ISPOR’s views on the future of HEOR, which is available on the Society’s website.

In this Strategic Plan Update 2024, no changes were recommended to ISPOR’s mission, vision, or strategic plan pillars. After review, by the Strategic Planning Work Group and Board of Directors, these continue to be a good representation of ISPOR’s aims and purpose.

Strategic pillar descriptions, objectives, and tactics were updated to emphasize areas of leadership, consensus shaping, education, and communication.

Long-Term Strategic Priorities

In the following Strategic Plan Update, long-term strategic priorities are defined as:

• Utilizing ISPOR’s resources to educate, communicate, and lead
• Promoting the use of HEOR in decision making, including continuing development of good research practices, providing platforms for dialogue, and producing highly regarded education and publications related to new and existing methods, technologies, and emerging trends in healthcare
• Communicating the value of HEOR and the impact ISPOR makes in improving healthcare decisions
• Leading and mentoring the HEOR profession, while maintaining linkages with professionals in complementary disciplines
• Ensuring a robust pipeline of members and future leaders who represent the diversity of ISPOR’s membership
• Enhancing collaboration with and involvement of payers, healthcare providers, patient engagement organizations, policy makers, assessors and regulators, research and academia, the life sciences industry, and interested societies and organizations across healthcare
• Maintaining financial stability while investing in members and new and existing mission-critical activities

Working to Transform Healthcare Decision Making

Over the past 25 years, the science and use of HEOR has grown exponentially. HEOR provides a framework to clearly define healthcare issues and to generate and assemble the relevant evidence to inform and guide healthcare decision making.

As a global, not-for-profit, scientific and educational society, ISPOR builds HEOR knowledge and skills among its members and stakeholders. ISPOR leads transformative efforts to strengthen and expand capabilities in HEOR to improve healthcare decision making. Informed by the collective knowledge and experience of its members, ISPOR understands the complexity of healthcare systems globally and believes that the application of good HEOR practices and resources greatly improves decisions across healthcare systems. The use of HEOR has expanded to all levels of analysis and decision making, broadening the Society’s membership base and, therefore, its education and communication responsibilities. This Strategic Plan Update 2024 is intended to build upon the long-time education and research focus of ISPOR by stimulating innovation in methods and development of good research practices, presenting education in global and local contexts, facilitating relevant dialogue among members and stakeholders, and communicating the impact of the application of HEOR.

The Future of HEOR

In developing this Strategic Plan update, ISPOR tapped the experiences of a large group of members representing many stakeholder segments and geographic regions. In addition to the development of this plan, various subgroups were assembled to inform ISPOR’s views on the future of HEOR, to clarify ISPOR’s value proposition to each stakeholder segment, and to recommend strategies to advance the role of HEOR in decision making. ISPOR describes the future of HEOR in a white paper, “The Future of HE+OR: HEOR’s and ISPOR’s Impact on Healthcare Systems and the Multistakeholder Community.”