BALTIMORE - The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Wolters Kluwer Health, a division of Wolters Kluwer, just published the premiere issue of The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, an international forum devoted to publishing research on patient-centered medicine.

The first academic journal in medicine to present solely the patient's perspective, The Patient addresses the growing concern that modern medicine has failed to adequately satisfy the needs of its most important stakeholder, the patient. In an era of managed care and cost-containment, current trends in medicine are being driven primarily by the needs and wants of healthcare payors. Even in academic medicine, new therapies are often studied in terms of their risks and benefits, measures that are chosen by physicians and researchers, often without the involvement of patients. The new journal will publish research to help advance a medical environment where patients are not just subjects but part of the scientific process.

"Patients are important stakeholders in the science of medicine, yet their views often go unheard," said John F.P. Bridges, Ph.D., founding Editor of The Patient and Assistant Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "With The Patient, we set out to create a forum to present those views, not through anecdote or political means, but through hard science that presents patients' views in a systematic and unbiased way."

A leading expert on and proponent of patient-centered healthcare, Dr. Bridges oversees editorial direction for the new journal together with co-editor Christopher Carswell of Wolters Kluwer Health. Bryce McMurray, Product Director, Adis Journals, Wolters Kluwer Health, is in charge of marketing and circulation.

"We're pleased to add The Patient to our longstanding family of Adis journals," said McMurray. "We expect it will quickly become the torchbearer for patient-centric medicine and open a new window to all of the current, original research on the subject. In turn, we expect that it will spur further study."

The inaugural issue includes contributions from world-renowned researchers investigating patient attitudes and preferences for healthcare, including topics such as health insurance; screening for disease; residential care; and the impact of ethnicity and gender on medication adherence. Also included is a profile of breast cancer survivor and patient advocate Lillie Shockney, Administrative Director of the Johns Hopkins Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Center and a leading researcher in the patient-centered outcomes area.

Published four times per year, The Patient is available globally by subscription in both print and electronic form by visiting http://thepatient.adisonline.com. For those interested in sneaking a peak, the premier issue is available as a free download through July 31, 2008.

The Patient joins a long and trusted line of peer-reviewed Adis™ publications focused on improving patient health including Drugs, Drug Safety, and Pharmacoeconomics. The new journal is aimed at the international medical and health communities and serves researchers and scientists, and government, regulatory, insurance and pharmaceutical industry professionals including formulary managers; healthcare providers and policy makers; executives in managed care, health maintenance organizations and with healthcare payers; and executives in pharmaceutical companies and in pharmacoeconomic academics.

For more information about The Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, visit www.jhsph.edu/dept/hpm/. For more about Wolters Kluwer Health, visit www.wkhealth.com.