title: Evidence-based medicine in health care reform.
abstract: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 mandates a national comparative outcomes research project agenda. Comparative effectiveness research includes both clinical trials and observational studies and is facilitated by electronic health records. A national network of electronic health records will create a vast electronic data "warehouse" with exponential growth of observational data. High-quality associations will identify research topics for pragmatic clinical trials, and systematic reviews of clinical trials will provide optimal evidence-based medicine. Evidence-based medicine is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. Thus, health care reform will provide a robust environment for comparative effectiveness research, systematic reviews, and evidence-based medicine, and implementation of evidence-based medicine should lead to improved quality of care.
authors.affiliation: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA. hughesg@nidcd.nih.gov
authors.forename: Gordon B
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Hughes
mesh_terms: D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D057186:Comparative Effectiveness Research / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards; D057286:Electronic Health Records; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D018166:Health Care Reform; D006801:Humans; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; D014481:United States