Is Evidence-Based Medicine a Barrier to Cost-Effective Care?

August 29, 2007 presentation by Alan Garber for the Stanford School of Medicine Medcast lecture series.

Alan Garber, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and the director of the Center for Health Policy and of the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research at Stanford University, discusses the importance of distinguishing between a treatment's effectiveness and its value, and in turn what role evidence-based medicine should play in today's coverage decisions.

Stanford University School of Medicine:
http://med.stanford.edu/

Stanford University Channel on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/stanforduniversity

Category:

Education

Tags:

• health
• care
• coverage
• policy
• Medicare
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• clinical
• trials
• patient
• outcome
• costs
• benefits
• evidence-based
• medicine
• EBM
• quality-adjusted
• life
• years
• Social
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• reimbursement
• cost
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• Herceptin
• angiography
• breast
• cancer
• GD

[jonald32z]

One thing that stands out to me here and in his lecture on health care reform in the Mini Med school section is that he demonstrates no concern for the individual level of impact. It's one thing to say that on the whole a study showed only minimal gains or that only 15% recovered.

It's another thing entirely when those numbers are real people. That's a big part of the cost too since everyone wants the best shot for themselves and their loved ones. Dr. Garber seems oblivious to that part...

[agapitoflores001]

This question was very well answered.