ECRI Institute's Conference Examines Comparative Effectiveness of Health Interventions

June 19, 2007 - ECRI Institute's 15th Annual Conference, Comparative Effectiveness of Health Interventions: Strategies to Change Policy and Practice, will seek answers with the help of the nation's leading experts in this emerging field, taking place October 17-18, 2007, in Washington, D.C.
Comparative effectiveness, the concept of comparing the effectiveness of different clinical modalities, is being weighed as a major policy initiative by federal policymakers and many constituencies within healthcare. It may have sweeping implications for how the nation evaluates and pays for competing approaches to patient care.
"This conference is designed for both policymakers and practitioners inside the Beltway and across the nation," says ECRI Institute President and CEO Jeffrey C. Lerner, Ph.D. "We'll be asking questions about treatments that affect a patient's care, such as whether a stent, bypass surgery, or medical management is the best modality to treat coronary artery disease. This is just a single example of the extraordinary challenges that proponents and implementers of comparative effectiveness studies will need to address for a vast range of clinical conditions."

For more information: www.ecri.org