An NIH study of treatments for high blood pressure, called the ALLHAT trial, shows some of the strengths and limitations of comparative effectiveness research to improve patient care. More...
For journalists and other media professionals
Every patient is different, so it is very important for CER research to be designed, communicated and used in ways that recognize individual patient differences. CER typically focuses on population averages, not differences in individuals. CER research should reflect the differences in patients based on factors such as genetics, health status, and their environment. This will help ensure that CER reflects patients’ individual circumstances rather than encouraging one-size fits all solutions based on averages.
Support personalized medicine and other advances that can help improve patient care. The emerging science of personalized medicine is changing the way we think about comparative effectiveness research. Advances in genetics and other fields like health information technology are giving physicians powerful new tools to understand which treatments are likely to work best on which patients. These advances hold potential to improve patient care and health care value. If comparative effectiveness research is not designed and used in ways that reflect this, it will stymie progress in personalized medicine and discourage continued medical innovation. Comparative effectiveness programs should facilitate the ability of physicians to tailor treatments to the needs of individual patients based on genetic information and other factors.
Click here to learn more about personalized medicine and what it means for health care.