About Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs)

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) created the Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs) in 1997 to conduct research reviews for the Effective Health Care (EHC) Program.

The EPCs are housed at 15 of the nation’s top medical schools, universities, or medical centers. The EPCs produce comparative effectiveness reviews or effectiveness reviews on medications, devices, and other health care services for the EHC Program with the goal of helping patients, physicians, and policymakers make better decisions about treatments.

Each EPC is each made up of medical researchers from a broad range of scientific backgrounds. The people who conduct research at EPCs are medical doctors, public health specialists, pharmacy doctors, and other medical specialists.

The EPCs are also responsible for an editorial review process that ensures accuracy, quality, consistency, and credibility of their scientific evidence reports. To learn more about the editorial review process and the associate editors involved, please visit the About the EPC Editorial Review Process page.

To visit the Web sites of each EPC, simply click on the links below.
 

• Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Technology Evaluation Center (TEC) , Chicago, IL - Naomi Aronson, Ph.D.
• Duke University , Durham, NC - Gillian Sanders Schmidler, Ph.D.
• ECRI Institute , Plymouth Meeting, PA - Karen Schoelles, M.D., S.M.
• Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, MD - Eric B. Bass, M.D., M.P.H.
• McMaster University , Hamilton, Ontario, Canada - Parminder Raina, Ph.D.
• Oregon Health & Science University , Portland, OR - Mark Helfand, M.D., M.S., M.P.H.
• RTI International--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill, NC - Meera Viswanathan, Ph.D.
• Southern California Evidence-based Practice Center--RAND , Santa Monica, CA - Paul Shekelle, M.D., Ph.D.
• Tufts University--New England Medical Center, Boston, MA - Joseph Lau, M.D.
• University of Alberta, Edmonton , Alberta, Canada - Lisa Hartling, BScPT., M.Sc., Ph.D. and Brian H. Rowe, M.D., M.Sc., CCFP(EM), FCCP
• University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT - C. Michael White, PharmD.
• Minnesota Evidence-based Practice Center , Minneapolis, MN - Robert L. Kane, M.D. and Timothy J. Wilt, M.D., M.P.H.
• University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada - David Moher, Ph.D.
• Vanderbilt University Medical Center , Nashville, TN - Katherine Hartmann, M.D., Ph.D.