Curricular standards for comparative effectiveness research

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Abstract AHRQ seeks to support conferences that help to further its mission to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans. To this end, we propose a conference to establish curricular standards for comparative effectiveness research (CER). This will contribute to advancing CER education and lead to a new generation of well-trained investigators who can accomplish this vital research. CER is the conduct and synthesis of research comparing alternative interventions designed to diagnose, treat and monitor health conditions in real-world settings. The purpose of CER is to improve health outcomes by developing and disseminating evidence-based information to patients, clinicians, and other decision-makers about which interventions are most effective at the individual patient and population levels. New investigators need to know how to collaborate with stakeholders to conceive a hypothesis, to design and conduct definitive observational and experimental research, and to translate this knowledge into high-fidelity, practical applications in clinical and community settings. Furthermore, multidisciplinary training, practical experiences, and strong mentorship are needed to create these new investigators who can facilitate the advance of clinical and CER methods and knowledge To respond to these challenges, academic institutions have begun to develop curricula to train current and newly emerging investigators in the methods of CER. The specific aims of the conference are to: 1) Review existing competencies that have been proposed for CER; 2) Describe existing curricula and other approaches that aim to achieve these competencies; 3) Learn about workforce needs for CER-trained researchers; 4) Identify curricular enhancements that can be made to existing CER curricula; and 5) Discuss unique methodological issues of CER unaddressed by related disciplines. The conference outlined in this proposal will further the mission of AHRQ in improving the quality, safety, efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare for all Americans in that it will bring together stakeholders from several disciplines who will establish training competencies, develop curricula, identify workforce needs, and disseminate the results of this important work through reports, presentations, and pee-reviewed manuscripts - all with the goal of preparing research scientists and decision-makers to successfully undertake and use CER, respectively.