Introducing the topic of comparative effectiveness for prostate cancer treatments with a reminder of the disease's heterogeneity risks tautology. However, the profound variation both in this cancer's biology and its clinical course is increasingly widely recognized, while management alternatives for clinically localized prostate cancer have exploded. Available options now include active surveil...

OBJECTIVES To describe a new, rigorous, comprehensive practice-based evidence for clinical practice improvement (PBE-CPI) study methodology, and compare its features, advantages, and disadvantages to those of randomized controlled trials and sophisticated statistical methods for comparative effectiveness research. RESEARCH DESIGN PBE-CPI incorporates natural variation within data from routine...

BACKGROUND Technological advances in clinical informatics have made large amounts of data accessible and potentially useful for research. As a result, a burgeoning literature addresses efforts to bridge the fields of health services research and biomedical informatics. The Electronic Data Methods Forum review examines peer-reviewed literature at the intersection of comparative effectiveness res...

Comparative effectiveness research (CER) stands out as the intriguing wild card of health care reform. CER compares competing treatments against each other to determine which interventions work best, supplying critical information for medical decisionmaking and health policy. If CER works as planned, it may be one of the few reform measures in the final health care legislation that could flatte...

The state of Louisiana, like the nation as a whole, is facing the salient challenge of improving population health and efficiency of healthcare delivery. Research to inform innovations in healthcare will best enhance this effort if it is timely, efficient, and patient-centered. The Louisiana Clinical Data Research Network (LACDRN) will increase the capacity to conduct robust comparative effecti...