New Federal Board on Compartive Effectiveness

From the Washington Post:

Reports on a new entity: the Board of Governors of the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute. "If you're not familiar with the board, you're not alone. Created by the health-care overhaul law, it's one of the newest and least known panels in government. But the work of its 21 members, if successful, could increase the public's knowledge of medical treatments for everything from attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder to cancer. And it could dramatically change how you discuss treatments with your doctor when the law is fully implemented in 2014." Tasked with helping patients, doctors and purchasers make informed decisions on quality and health care effectiveness, the board will "direct the institute's researchers to examine mounds of comparative effective research undertaken by schools, hospitals and medical companies to study the benefits and detriments of medical treatments".

This Board is one of the major tools in reducing the cost of health care. It amazes me that we still really do not know what the best ways to treat certain diseases are. And when we learn what is, that it takes 18 yrs for it to become stand practice. This Board shouls really move things along hopefully.