Pragmatic Randomized Clinical Trials Using Primary Data Collection and Electronic Health Records addresses the practical aspects and challenges of the design, implementation, and dissemination of pragmatic randomized trials, also sometimes referred to as practical or hybrid randomized trials. While less restrictive and more generalizable than traditional randomized controlled trials, such trials have specific challenges which are addressed in this book. The book contains chapters encompassing common designs along with advantages and limitations of such designs, analytic aspects in planning trials and estimating sample size, and how to use patient partners to help design and operationalize pragmatic randomized trials. Pragmatic trials conducted using primary data collection and trials embedded in electronic health records - including electronic medical records and administrative insurance claims - are addressed. This comprehensive resource is valuable not only for pharmacoepidemiologists, biostatisticians and clinical researchers, but also across the biomedical field for those who are interested in applying pragmatic randomized clinical trials in their research. Addresses typical designs and challenges of pragmatic randomized clinical trials (pRCTs) Encompasses analytic aspects of such trials Discusses real cases on operational challenges in launching and conducting pRCTs in electronic health records

Pragmatic Randomized Clinical Trials Using Primary Data Collection and Electronic Health Records addresses the practical aspects and challenges of the design, implementation and dissemination of pragmatic randomized trials. The book contains chapters encompassing common designs, along with the advantages and limitations of such designs, analytic aspects in planning trials and estimating sample size, and how to use patient partners to help design and operationalize such trials. Pragmatic trials conducted using primary data collection and trials embedded in electronic health records - including electronic medical records and administrative insurance claims - are addressed. This comprehensive resource is valuable not only for biostatitians, but also for several members of biomedical field who are interested in applying pragmatic randomized clinical trials in their research. Brings typical designs and challenges of pragmatic randomized clinical trials (pRCTs) Encompasses analytic aspects for sample size determination of such trials Discusses real cases on operational challenges in launching and conducting pRCTs in electronic health records

Randomized clinical trials are the primary tool for evaluating new medical interventions. Randomization provides for a fair comparison between treatment and control groups, balancing out, on average, distributions of known and unknown factors among the participants. Unfortunately, these studies often lack a substantial percentage of data. This missing data reduces the benefit provided by the randomization and introduces potential biases in the comparison of the treatment groups. Missing data can arise for a variety of reasons, including the inability or unwillingness of participants to meet appointments for evaluation. And in some studies, some or all of data collection ceases when participants discontinue study treatment. Existing guidelines for the design and conduct of clinical trials, and the analysis of the resulting data, provide only limited advice on how to handle missing data. Thus, approaches to the analysis of data with an appreciable amount of missing values tend to be ad hoc and variable. The Prevention and Treatment of Missing Data in Clinical Trials concludes that a more principled approach to design and analysis in the presence of missing data is both needed and possible. Such an approach needs to focus on two critical elements: (1) careful design and conduct to limit the amount and impact of missing data and (2) analysis that makes full use of information on all randomized participants and is based on careful attention to the assumptions about the nature of the missing data underlying estimates of treatment effects. In addition to the highest priority recommendations, the book offers more detailed recommendations on the conduct of clinical trials and techniques for analysis of trial data.

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are measures of how patients feel or what they are able to do in the context of their health status; PROs are reports, usually on questionnaires, about a patient's health conditions, health behaviors, or experiences with health care that individuals report directly, without modification of responses by clinicians or others; thus, they directly reflect the voice of the patient. PROs cover domains such as physical health, mental and emotional health, functioning, symptoms and symptom burden, and health behaviors. They are relevant for many activities: helping patients and their clinicians make informed decisions about health care, monitoring the progress of care, setting policies for coverage and reimbursement of health services, improving the quality of health care services, and tracking or reporting on the performance of health care delivery organizations. We address the major methodological issues related to choosing, administering, and using PROs for these purposes, particularly in clinical practice settings. We include a framework for best practices in selecting PROs, focusing on choosing appropriate methods and modes for administering PRO measures to accommodate patients with diverse linguistic, cultural, educational, and functional skills, understanding measures developed through both classic and modern test theory, and addressing complex issues relating to scoring and analyzing PRO data.

As our nation enters a new era of medical science that offers the real prospect of personalized health care, we will be confronted by an increasingly complex array of health care options and decisions. The Learning Healthcare System considers how health care is structured to develop and to apply evidence-from health profession training and infrastructure development to advances in research methodology, patient engagement, payment schemes, and measurement-and highlights opportunities for the creation of a sustainable learning health care system that gets the right care to people when they need it and then captures the results for improvement. This book will be of primary interest to hospital and insurance industry administrators, health care providers, those who train and educate health workers, researchers, and policymakers. The Learning Healthcare System is the first in a series that will focus on issues important to improving the development and application of evidence in health care decision making. The Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine serves as a neutral venue for cooperative work among key stakeholders on several dimensions: to help transform the availability and use of the best evidence for the collaborative health care choices of each patient and provider; to drive the process of discovery as a natural outgrowth of patient care; and, ultimately, to ensure innovation, quality, safety, and value in health care.

America's health care system has become too complex and costly to continue business as usual. Best Care at Lower Cost explains that inefficiencies, an overwhelming amount of data, and other economic and quality barriers hinder progress in improving health and threaten the nation's economic stability and global competitiveness. According to this report, the knowledge and tools exist to put the health system on the right course to achieve continuous improvement and better quality care at a lower cost. The costs of the system's current inefficiency underscore the urgent need for a systemwide transformation. About 30 percent of health spending in 2009-roughly $750 billion-was wasted on unnecessary services, excessive administrative costs, fraud, and other problems. Moreover, inefficiencies cause needless suffering. By one estimate, roughly 75,000 deaths might have been averted in 2005 if every state had delivered care at the quality level of the best performing state. This report states that the way health care providers currently train, practice, and learn new information cannot keep pace with the flood of research discoveries and technological advances. About 75 million Americans have more than one chronic condition, requiring coordination among multiple specialists and therapies, which can increase the potential for miscommunication, misdiagnosis, potentially conflicting interventions, and dangerous drug interactions. Best Care at Lower Cost emphasizes that a better use of data is a critical element of a continuously improving health system, such as mobile technologies and electronic health records that offer significant potential to capture and share health data better. In order for this to occur, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, IT developers, and standard-setting organizations should ensure that these systems are robust and interoperable. Clinicians and care organizations should fully adopt these technologies, and patients should be encouraged to use tools, such as personal health information portals, to actively engage in their care. This book is a call to action that will guide health care providers; administrators; caregivers; policy makers; health professionals; federal, state, and local government agencies; private and public health organizations; and educational institutions.

This extensively revised second edition is a unique and portable handbook focusing on clinical trials in surgery. It includes new educational materials addressing the rapid evolution of novel research methodologies in basic science, clinical and educational research. The underlying principles of clinical trials, trial design, the development of a study cohort, statistics, data safety, data monitoring, and trial publication for device and drug trials are also discussed. Clinical Trials provides a comprehensive resource on clinical trials in surgery and describes all the stages of a clinical trial from generating a hypothesis through to trial publication and is a valuable resource for all practicing and trainee academic surgeons.