TABLE 2.

RESULTS OF YEAR 1 WORKSHOP: CHRONIC CARE FOR CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE TOPICS

		Preworkshop Voting	Final Workshop Voting
		Importance Scores	Importance Ranks
		1 (Very Important) to 9 (Most Unimportant)	1 (Most Important) to 9 (Most Unimportant)
Topic	Chronic COPD Care	Median Score (IQR)	Median Rank (IQR)
1	Spirometry for diagnosis and treatment	3 (2–5)	1 (1–4)
2	Effectiveness of pulmonary rehabilitation	3 (1–3)	4 (2–5)
3	Effectiveness of COPD care and guideline translation	2 (1–3)	4 (1–6)
4	Home care	4 (3–5)	4 (3–6)
5	Development of performance measures	3 (1–4)	5 (3–7)
6	Oxygen therapy	2 (1–3)	5 (3–8)
7	Palliation of symptoms	3 (2–4)	7 (5–7)
8	Pharmaceutical treatment	3 (3–4)	7 (6–8)
9	Smoking cessation	2 (1–3)	8 (6–8)

Definition of abbreviations: CER = comparative effectiveness research; COPD = chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; IQR = interquartile range.

There were 33 participating stakeholder organizations in the workshop; individual participants are listed in Table 1. Preferences in the Preworkshop Voting were expressed as importance scores, whereas importance ranks were used for the Final Workshop voting. Ranks were used in an attempt to more easily separate topics by level of importance. To more clearly observe differences in priorities within each CER area, stakeholders were informed that no two topics should be assigned the same importance rank. Wide IQRs suggest variation in stakeholder preferences.