Comparative effectiveness research began in the late 1970s and, until the recent health care debate, for the most part enjoyed bipartisan political support.
Comparative effectiveness research involves running large, statistically robust clinical trials so we can judge how different therapies for a particular disease compare to each other.
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Many conservatives reacted by arguing that comparative effectiveness research is bad, because it is a pretext for government interference in clinical practice, and for price controls.
FORBES: How Comparative Effectiveness Research Gets Corrupted by Politics
Nonetheless, I do believe that government, in the form of the National Institutes of Health, has a constructive role to play in funding comparative effectiveness research.
FORBES: How Comparative Effectiveness Research Gets Corrupted by Politics
Comparative effectiveness research shows which treatments are more effective.
The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, passed at a time when Republicans occupied the White House and controlled Congress, authorized the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to perform comparative effectiveness research.
Comparative effectiveness research has been done for years.
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He said that the growing use of comparative effectiveness research, which provides information on the relative strengths and weaknesses of different medical technologies, could help close the gap between what is known and what is done in pharmaceutical care.
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Comparative effectiveness research is part of a plan to reallocate health care resources in a way similar to the U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which uses "experts" to judge the cost-effectiveness of therapies, in order to decide which ones the government will pay for.
At its best, comparative-effectiveness research can give doctors and patients additional information on their treatment options.
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The 15-member Independent Medicare Advisory board will be formed amid concerns that it will arbitrarily turn down essential services based on overused so-called "comparative effectiveness" research.
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