whAt Is the PRoBleM? Different from trials for regulatory approvals of new interventions aimed to test the efficacy, comparative effectiveness research (CER) is the direct comparison of existing health‐care interventions (compared with active controls) to examine which treatment works best, for whom, and under what settings.[1] Therefore, CER is indispensable to assist consumers, clinicians, pu...

BACKGROUND Comparative effectiveness research (CER) is supported by policymakers as a way to provide service providers and patients with evidence-based information to make better health-care decisions and ultimately improve services for patients. However, Latina/o patients are rarely involved as study advisors, and there is a lack of documentation on how their voices contribute to the research ...

I n this issue of PNAS, Press (1) proposes a method that could substantially advance ethical approaches to clinical trials and comparative effectiveness research. Such advances are needed to harvest the potential benefit of electronic medical information, allowing far greater numbers and far greater specificity of comparisons among diagnostic or treatment modalities in demographic, phenotypic, ...

PURPOSE Multi-institutional collaborations are necessary in order to create large and robust data sets that are needed to answer important comparative effectiveness research (CER) questions. Before scientific work can begin, a complex maze of administrative and regulatory requirements must be efficiently navigated to avoid project delays. INNOVATION Staff from research, regulatory, and admini...

Comparative effectiveness research (CER) is a theme that will play an increasingly important role in the discourse of medical care. The Institute of Medicine defines CER as “the generation and synthesis of evidence that compares the benefits and harms of alternative methods to prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor a clinical condition or to improve the delivery of care” (1). Most commonly, CER ...

Kilbridge correctly points out that comparative effectiveness research (CER) does not require cost data. It should also be pointed out, however, that the composition of the quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gain of one intervention over another—whether the QALY gain is achieved mainly in the dimension of longevity or in the dimension of quality of life—has real consequences in terms of comparat...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act established a new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to identify and address research priorities for comparative effectiveness research. Among its many responsibilities, the institute has been charged with setting priorities, developing methodological standards, and communicating research results to decision makers. In this paper we consi...

There is an urgent need for an evidence base to guide care for patients with multiple chronic medical conditions (MCC). Comparative effectiveness research (CER) has been touted as 1 solution to generating such evidence. However, the majority of CER topics and methods are designed to generate evidence applicable to single diseases. Generating evidence to guide the care of MCC populations require...