I blogged yesterday about comparative effectiveness research. One reader challenged me about medical organizations endorsing CER. SGIM has repeatedly endorsed CER, and I blogged about it in 2007 – Comparative effectiveness. I am currently on the ACP Board of Regents. We have an official policy in favor of CER – Information on Cost-Effectiveness: An Essential Product of a National Comparative Effectiveness Program
The American College of Physicians recently highlighted the need to provide increased information comparing the effectiveness of health care interventions to ensure the rational and effective practice of medicine. Comparative effectiveness refers to the evaluation of the relative clinical effectiveness, safety, and cost of 2 or more medical services, drugs, devices, therapies, or procedures used to treat the same condition. The College further recommended the establishment of an adequately funded, trusted national entity that should prioritize, sponsor, or produce both comparative clinical and cost-effectiveness data.
This article addresses the need for the proposed entity to develop cost-effectiveness information. It examines the current reluctance to develop and use cost-effectiveness in the United States; it argues for the importance of this information for all health care stakeholders; and it makes specific recommendations regarding how this information can best be made available and used for the good of the public and our patients.
So both organizations in which I have worked have endorsed CER enthusiastically.
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Dr. Centor,
You have much more faith that I in the capacity of the government to do what they promise to do or not to do what they promise not to do.You and I are both old enough to remember the promise of Medicare and the current reality.Physicians were reassured with the passage of Medicare that Medicare would neither dictate treatment nor impose wage controls.There is no doubt that comparative effectiveness research would be of great value to both patients and physicians if it could be done in an unbiased way uninfluenced by the special interests that seem to play such a role in much of the the government does,mission statements to the contrary notwithstanding. I hope it works out well but then I had that hope for Medicare.
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