Support for comparative effectiveness research is gaining momentum, experts say

The Wall Street Journal: "A national push to increase research to find out which medical treatments work best for which patients is gaining momentum, even though many worry the findings may be used to ration care. … National public health experts say [comparative effectiveness research's] potential to improve health care quality for both patients and doctors outweighs any risks, and federal money is necessary to encourage providers to take part." Congress has "included strict rules in the health care law stipulating that federally funded CER results could not be used by Medicare to set pricing or limit coverage of a service" and stipulated the formation of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, which will "oversee CER funding and guard against ethical breaches" and be funded by a trust fund through 2019 (Martin, 11/11).

---

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.