Comparative Effectiveness Research: Is it Progress?

Comparative effectiveness research: a progress report.

Sixteen months ago, comparative effectiveness research (CER) began its rapid rise, when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allocated $1.1 billion for CER. This progress report summarizes how the recipients of the funds-the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services-are...

Is treatment heterogeneity an Achilles' heel for comparative effectiveness research?

Funding Dr. Alexander was supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (RO1 HS0189960) and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (R01 HL 107345-0). Dr. Lambert was supported by grant number U18HS016973 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Agency ...

Comparative effectiveness research for antipsychotic medications: how much is enough?

Second-generation antipsychotics have attracted practitioners' and policy-makers' attention, because of concerns over their health effects and costs. Comparative effectiveness data from the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE)-a high-profile National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study-have been used to argue for restricting coverage for these costly drugs. Bu...

CEPAC and comparative effectiveness research.

Methods in comparative effectiveness research.

Comparative effectiveness research (CER) seeks to assist consumers, clinicians, purchasers, and policy makers to make informed decisions to improve health care at both the individual and population levels. CER includes evidence generation and evidence synthesis. Randomized controlled trials are central to CER because of the lack of selection bias, with the recent development of adaptive and pra...