Medical Devices: Adapting to the Comparative Effectiveness Landscape Outcomes research for medical devices has always lagged, with good reason. Comparative effectiveness initiatives, though, will soon spur demand for more and better data, and that means more and better outcomes research training.

摘要

Comparative effectiveness research (CER) is an effort to improve population health outcomes while stemming the tide of rising healthcare costs. With the exception of cardiac stents (Chambers 2009, Ellis 2009, Leon 2009), little is known about how CER can and will be applied to medical devices, such as prosthetics and mesh repairs of hernias and vaginal organ prolapse; diagnostic tools, such as biomarkers for detecting occult metastases and genetic variations in cancer; radiological screening tools for cancer; and computed tomography (CT) for medical imaging. Whether and how different medical devices can be compared, or, at a minimum, their effectiveness measured, will depend on our ability to identify and develop appropriate measures for tracking and evaluating the end results of using such devices.