H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH
The unremitting growth of health expenditures has created growing demands on physicians to justify diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. To do so, physicians usually focus on the question of whether treatments can work in the ideal—the question of efficacy (1). Because efficacy is assessed in highly controlled environments, physicians have focused more recently on whether treatments do work under the conditions in which they are applied in practice—the question of effectiveness (2). However, because neither efficacy nor effectiveness measures the resources required to achieve an outcome, physicians have also become interested in the question of cost required to achieve a given
Welch HG. Valuing Clinical Strategies Early in Their Development. Ann Intern Med. ;116:263–264. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-116-3-263
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© 2018
Published: Ann Intern Med. 1992;116(3):263-264.
DOI: 10.7326/0003-4819-116-3-263
Healthcare Delivery and Policy, Hospital Medicine.