News Link • Healthcare

The stark difference between the medical terms clinical and comparative!

03-11-2011 • The Political Commentator

I was forwarded an op-ed that was written by Peter Pitts, President of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, and published in the Washington Examiner. In the piece he discusses "how federally sponsored comparative-effectiveness research is just the beginning of the government's efforts to limit Americans' healthcare choices." The crux of the argument centers in on the critical differences between two words: Clinical and comparative. The first word, clinical, looks at potential outcomes on the individual patient level. The second word, comparative, looks at how a drug or procedure might be tolerated at the disease level. Comparative, said another way, is cost effectiveness...