Comparative Effectiveness Research: A Report From the Institute of Medicine

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On 30 June 2009, another milestone was achieved in progress toward a national system to promote medical research that focuses on decision making by physicians and patients. The first steps occurred in late 2007 and early 2008 with a seminal article (1) and an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report that called for a national initiative of research that would support better decision making about interventions in health care (2). One of us was a coeditor of the IOM report. A third milestone was reached when both presidential candidates endorsed this concept. A fourth milestone came when the president signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA); this act allotted $1.1 billion to support this form of research, which had become known as comparative effectiveness research (CER). The legislation created a federal council on CER and asked the IOM to elicit input from a broad array of stakeholders on which research topics should have the highest-priority for funding through the ARRA and to then develop a list of the highest-priority topics for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to consider.

By law, the Federal Coordinating Council and the IOM committee to set priorities for comparative effectiveness research reported to the Secretary on 30 June 2009. This issue contains both this article, which is a commentary on the IOM committee report (3) by the committee's cochairs, and a perspective on better research methods for CER (4).