Testing What We Think We Know

Controversial oped by Dr. H. GILBERT WELCH was published today in the New York Times.

"We don’t need to find more things to spend money on; we need to figure out what’s being done now that is not working. That’s why we have to start directing more money toward evaluating standard practices — all the tests and treatments that doctors are already providing...
Here’s a simple idea to turn this around: devote 1 percent of health care expenditures to evaluating what the other 99 percent is buying. Distribute the research dollars to match the clinical dollars...
A call for more medical research might sound like pablum. Worse, coming from a medical researcher, it might sound like self-interest (cut me some slack, that’s another one of our standard practices). But I don’t need the money. The system does. Or if you prefer, we can continue to argue about who pays for what — without knowing what’s worth paying for."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/opinion/testing-standard-medical-practices.html?_r=1