A Simple Health-Care Fix Fizzles Out
By KEITH J. WINSTEIN
WSJ
It sounds like such a simple concept: Study different medical treatments and figure out which delivers the best results at the cheapest cost, giving patients the most effective care.
Even before Congress took up the now-stalled health-care overhaul, it appropriated $1.1 billion to fund these studies. Both the Senate and the House included it in their versions of the bill. President Barack Obama backed it.
Yet, an examination of one of the best-known examples of a comparative-effectiveness analysis shows how complicated such a seemingly straightforward idea can get.
The study, known as "Courage" and published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, shook the world of cardiology. It found that the most common heart surgery—a $15,000 procedure that unclogs arteries using a small scaffold or stent—usually yields no additional benefit when used with a cocktail of generic drugs in patients suffering from chronic chest pain.
(More here.)
WSJ
It sounds like such a simple concept: Study different medical treatments and figure out which delivers the best results at the cheapest cost, giving patients the most effective care.
Even before Congress took up the now-stalled health-care overhaul, it appropriated $1.1 billion to fund these studies. Both the Senate and the House included it in their versions of the bill. President Barack Obama backed it.
Yet, an examination of one of the best-known examples of a comparative-effectiveness analysis shows how complicated such a seemingly straightforward idea can get.
The study, known as "Courage" and published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, shook the world of cardiology. It found that the most common heart surgery—a $15,000 procedure that unclogs arteries using a small scaffold or stent—usually yields no additional benefit when used with a cocktail of generic drugs in patients suffering from chronic chest pain.
(More here.)
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