Former HCFA Administrator suggests new U.S. agency on comparative clinical effectiveness

Nov 8 2006

"Developing a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Information," Health Affairs: In a Health Affairs Web exclusive, Gail Wilensky -- an economist, senior fellow at Project HOPE and former administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration -- examines the growing interest in the U.S. for unbiased, credible information on comparative clinical effectiveness by those who support competitive health care pricing and by those who support administered pricing.

According to Wilensky, the U.S. should establish an agency for comparative effectiveness information to support better decision making in health care and "provide an independent assessment of comparative effectiveness of medical interventions for use by payers, patients and providers" (Wilensky, Health Affairs, 11/8).

Three perspective pieces responding to Wilensky's article by Kathy Buto and Peter Juhn -- vice president of health policy and executive director of health policy and evidence-based medicine, respectively, at Johnson and Johnson; Carolyn Clancy is director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; and former Aetna CEO John Rowe of the department of health policy and management at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and colleagues are available online.