BACKGROUND The field of clinical research informatics includes creation of clinical data repositories (CDRs) used to conduct quality improvement (QI) activities and comparative effectiveness research (CER). Ideally, CDR data are accurately and directly abstracted from disparate electronic health records (EHRs), across diverse health-systems. OBJECTIVE Investigators from Washington State's Sur...

Several advances in large data set collection and processing have the potential to provide a wave of new insights and improvements in the use of radiation therapy for cancer treatment. The era of electronic health records, genomics, and improving information technology resources creates the opportunity to leverage these developments to create a learning healthcare system that can rapidly delive...

Editors from a number of medical journals lay out principles for journals considering publication of Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER). In order to encourage dissemination of this editorial, this article is freely available in PLoS Medicine and will be also published in Medical Decision Making, Croatian Medical Journal, The Cochrane Library, Trials, The American Journal of Managed Care, ...

OBJECTIVE To raise awareness among clinicians and epidemiologists that single-patient (n-of-1) trials are potentially useful for informing personalized treatment decisions for patients with chronic conditions. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING We reviewed the clinical and statistical literature on methods and applications of single-patient trials and then critically evaluated the needs for further met...

The use of indirect comparisons to evaluate the relative effectiveness between two or more treatments is widespread in the literature and continues to grow each year. Appropriate methodologies will be essential for integrating data from various published clinical trials into a systematic framework as part of the increasing emphasis on comparative effectiveness research. This article provides a ...

The high-dimensional propensity score (hdPS) algorithm was proposed for automation of confounding adjustment in problems involving large healthcare databases. It has been evaluated in comparative effectiveness research (CER) with point treatments to handle baseline confounding through matching or covariance adjustment on the hdPS. In observational studies with time-varying interventions, such h...

A number of jurisdictions have been experimenting with new problem-oriented policing frameworks to understand and respond to gun violence among gang-involved offenders. These interventions are based on the “pulling levers” deterrence strategy that focuses criminal justice and social service attention on a small number of chronically offending gang members responsible for the bulk of urban gun v...

A PPROXIMATELY half of all medical care provided in the United States is based on insufficient scientific evidence and may even be of “uncertain or questionable value.” This realization has spurred interest and extensive government funding in comparative effectiveness research (CER) with the ultimate goal to improve the effectiveness, efficacy, and efficiency of health care. To date, few initia...

The need to focus healthcare expenditures on innovative and sustainable health systems that efficiently use existing effective therapies are the major drivers stimulating Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) across the globe. Lack of adequate access and high cost of essential medicines and technologies in many countries increases morbidity and mortality and cost of care that forces people a...

The research was conducted in the clinic of pediatric surgery (city Novokuznetsk, Russia) in the year 1982 to 1985 in patients with severe AP in the initial period of the disease. At that time children with the most aggressive forms of AP were selectively admitted to our department. Сervical vagosympathetic blockade (CVB), Cups therapy (CupT) and Cold wet wraps procedures has been used. The eff...