What is Comparative Effectiveness Research

Comparative effectiveness research is designed to inform health care decisions by providing evidence on the effectiveness, benefits, and harms of different treatment options. The evidence is generated from research studies that compare drugs, medical devices, tests, surgeries, or ways to deliver health care.

There are two ways that this evidence is found:

• Researchers look at all of the available evidence about the benefits and harms of each choice for different groups of people from existing clinical trials, clinical studies, and other research. These are called research reviews, because they are systematic reviews of existing evidence.
• Researchers conduct studies that generate new evidence of effectiveness or comparative effectiveness of a test, treatment, procedure, or health care service.

Comparative effectiveness research requires the development, expansion, and use of a variety of data sources and methods to conduct timely and relevant research and disseminate the results in a form that is quickly usable by clinicians, patients, policymakers, and health plans and other payers. Seven steps are involved in conducting this research and to ensure continued development of the research infrastructure to sustain and advance these efforts:

1. Identify new and emerging clinical interventions
2. Review and synthesize current medical research
3. Identify gaps between existing medical research and the needs of clinical practice
4. Promote and generate new scientific evidence and analytic tools
5. Train and develop clinical researchers
6. Translate and disseminate research findings to diverse stakeholders
7. Reach out to stakeholders via a citizens forum

Why is comparative effectiveness research needed?

When you shop for a new car, phone or camera, you have lots of information about your choices. But when it comes to choosing the right medicine or the most appropriate health care treatment, clear and dependable information can be very hard to find. Most information is about a single drug, medical device, or procedure. As a result, patients and their clinicians often make treatment choices without easily understanding the benefits and harms of all their options. Comparative effectiveness research can help by highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of different treatment options and focusing on the best possible results. Various policymakers, health plans, and other payers also use this information to inform their decisions.

How is comparative effectiveness research used?

Every patient is different – different circumstances, different medical histories, different values. Comparative effectiveness research doesn’t tell patients and their doctors which treatment to choose. Instead, it offers the latest and best information about treatments or other approaches to an illness or condition so that patients and doctors can work together to make the best possible treatment choices.

Someone with high blood pressure, for example, might have more than a dozen medicines to choose from. Someone with heart disease might need to choose between having heart surgery or taking medicine to open a clogged artery. Comparative effectiveness research, which reviews the benefits and harms of all the options, can be a helpful tool for everyone participating in decisionmaking:

• Patients face complicated choices: Which test will help most? Which medicine is best? Is surgery the best option? Every patient is different, and each should make choices based on individual needs. By providing more information, comparative effectiveness research helps patients work with their clinicians to make the best possible choices.
• Doctors and other health care providers can use comparative effectiveness research to keep up on the best available scientific evidence on a particular health care topic, such as treatments for a chronic condition like diabetes. Providers can also learn how well a particular group of medications work in a specific category of patient, such as the elderly or children. Comparative effectiveness studies also describe the strength of evidence behind scientific findings.
• Policymakers, business leaders and others want to make health care decisions based on the best available information about what works well and what doesn’t. Comparative effectiveness research can help decision makers plan public health programs, design health insurance coverage, and initiate wellness or advocacy programs that provide people with the best possible information about different health care options.