Reply #2: HCR sets up a “Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute" to evaluate treatments [View All]

Health care reform bill 101: Will it make health care more effective?

Buried within the massive new US health care reform law is a small provision that in years to come could have a major effect on the kinds of treatments that American patients receive.

The provision requires the federal government to set up something called a “Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.” It sets aside $500 million in seed money for this new nonprofit organization, which is supposed to become a national guiding force for comparative effectiveness research.

What’s that? Simply put, comparative effectiveness research takes a particular health problem, then pits different ways of treating that problem against one another, in an attempt to find which, if any, is a more effective way to maintain or restore patient health.

<SNIP>http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0326/Health-care-reform-bill-101-Will-it-make-health-care-more-effective