Knowing What Works in Health Care: A Roadmap for the Nation

There is currently heightened interest in optimizing health care through the generation of new knowledge on the effectiveness of health care services. The United States must substantially strengthen its capacity for assessing evidence on what is known and not known about "what works" in health care. Even the most sophisticated clinicians and consumers struggle to learn which care is appropriate and under what circumstances. Knowing What Works in Health Care looks at the three fundamental health care issues in the United States--setting priorities for evidence assessment, assessing evidence (systematic review), and developing evidence-based clinical practice guidelines--and how each of these contributes to the end goal of effective, practical health care systems. This book provides an overall vision and roadmap for improving how the nation uses scientific evidence to identify the most effective clinical services. Knowing What Works in Health Care gives private and public sector firms, consumers, health care professionals, benefit administrators, and others the authoritative, independent information required for making essential informed health care decisions.

• Front Matter
• Summary
• 1 Introduction
• 2 An Imperative for Change
• 3 Setting Priorities for Evidence Assessment
• 4 Systematic Reviews: The Central Link Between Evidence and Clinical Decision Making
• 5 Developing Trusted Clinical Practice Guidelines
• 6 Building a Foundation for Knowing What Works in Health Care
• Appendix A: Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Appendix B: Workshop Agendas and Questions to Panelists
• Appendix C: Template for Submissions of Topics to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
• Appendix D: Standards for Reporting Meta-Analyses of Clinical Trials and Observational Studies: QUOROM and MOOSE
• Appendix E: Examples of ECRI Institute and Hayes, Inc., Quick Turnaround Reports
• Appendix F: Guideline Standards: The AGREE Instrument and COGS Checklist
• Appendix G: Committee Biographies
• Index