A symposium of the Fifth Annual Scientific Session of the Surgical Outcomes Club in Chicago, Illinois, in October of last year, was dedicated to the topic of comparative effectiveness research in surgery. The symposium served to clarify current thinking about what comparative effectiveness research is, particularly its objectives and methods.
The definition of comparative effectiveness research has evolved with the input of a variety of parties, including the Congressional Budget Office, Office of Management and Budget, and the White House. A working definition has been produced by the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research that you can find here. Briefly, the definition talks about improving health outcomes by ‘developing and disseminating evidence-based information to patients, clinicians, and other decision-makers, responding to their expressed needs, about which interventions are most effective for which patients under specific circumstances’.
Comparative effectiveness research is currently being used in some jurisdictions to make policy and coverage decisions. While policy making and coverage decisions are increasingly made on the basis of research evidence, the evidence on which decisions are made is typically very weak.
Tags: evidence-based policy, medicine, USA