A Nurse Practitioner's View

The NY Times reports on a significant health initiative that is part of the $787 billion dollar stimulus bill. It is specifically referred to as Comparative Effectiveness Research. A council will be formed that will study the effectiveness of current treatments including medications, procedures, medical devices and surgeries by examining the research. I imagine these will consist of systematic reviews of the research and will examine the validity of the studies conducted (including Confidence Intervals, p-values, etc.) This is a major step towards integrating evidenced based practice ( EBP ) and cultural competence into our practice. There is often a significant lag time before research actually impacts daily practice. I recall a wise professor of mine stating that it would take a clinician reading 3 primary research articles every day of the year to stay current. I am hopeful that we will ultimately see treatments and outcomes tailored to gender and ethnicity (it is a fact that certa