Conduct and synthesis of systematic research comparing interventions and strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor health conditions. The purpose of this research is to inform patients, providers, and decision-makers, responding to their expressed needs, about which interventions are most effective for which patients under specific circumstances. (hhs.gov/recovery/programs/cer/draftdefinition.html accessed 6/12/2009)

An agency of the PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE established in 1990 to "provide indexing, abstracting, translating, publishing, and other services leading to a more effective and timely dissemination of information on research, demonstration projects, and evaluations with respect to health care to public and private entities and individuals engaged in the improvement of health care delivery..." It supersedes the National Center for Health Services Research. The United States Agency for Health Care Policy and Research was renamed Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) under the Healthcare Research and Quality Act of 1999.

Public Law No: 111-5, enacted February 2009, makes supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for fiscal year ending September 30, 2009.

Patient Outcome Assessment is a systematic process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to evaluate the effects of healthcare interventions on a patient's health status, quality of life, or functional status.

Design of patient care wherein institutional resources and personnel are organized around patients rather than around specialized departments. (From Hospitals 1993 Feb 5;67(3):14)

The term "United States" in a medical context often refers to the country where a patient or study participant resides, and is not a medical term per se, but relevant for epidemiological studies, healthcare policies, and understanding differences in disease prevalence, treatment patterns, and health outcomes across various geographic locations.

An Act prohibiting a health plan from establishing lifetime limits or annual limits on the dollar value of benefits for any participant or beneficiary after January 1, 2014. It permits a restricted annual limit for plan years beginning prior to January 1, 2014. It provides that a health plan shall not be prevented from placing annual or lifetime per-beneficiary limits on covered benefits. The Act sets up a competitive health insurance market.

A clinical study in which participants may receive diagnostic, therapeutic, or other types of interventions, but the investigator does not assign participants to specific interventions (as in an interventional study).

Media that facilitate transportability of pertinent information concerning patient's illness across varied providers and geographic locations. Some versions include direct linkages to online consumer health information that is relevant to the health conditions and treatments related to a specific patient.

An approach of practicing medicine with the goal to improve and evaluate patient care. It requires the judicious integration of best research evidence with the patient's values to make decisions about medical care. This method is to help physicians make proper diagnosis, devise best testing plan, choose best treatment and methods of disease prevention, as well as develop guidelines for large groups of patients with the same disease. (from JAMA 296 (9), 2006)

A plan for collecting and utilizing data so that desired information can be obtained with sufficient precision or so that an hypothesis can be tested properly.

The application of discoveries generated by laboratory research and preclinical studies to the development of clinical trials and studies in humans. A second area of translational research concerns enhancing the adoption of best practices.

Treatments which are undergoing clinical trials or for which there is insufficient evidence to determine their effects on health outcomes; coverage for such treatments is often denied by health insurers.

Innovation and improvement of the health care system by reappraisal, amendment of services, and removal of faults and abuses in providing and distributing health services to patients. It includes a re-alignment of health services and health insurance to maximum demographic elements (the unemployed, indigent, uninsured, elderly, inner cities, rural areas) with reference to coverage, hospitalization, pricing and cost containment, insurers' and employers' costs, pre-existing medical conditions, prescribed drugs, equipment, and services.

The act of regarding attentively and studying facts and occurrences, gathering data through analyzing, measuring, and drawing conclusions, with the purpose of applying the observed information to theoretical assumptions. Observation as a scientific method in the acquisition of knowledge began in classical antiquity; in modern science and medicine its greatest application is facilitated by modern technology. Observation is one of the components of the research process.

Financial support of research activities.

Research aimed at assessing the quality and effectiveness of health care as measured by the attainment of a specified end result or outcome. Measures include parameters such as improved health, lowered morbidity or mortality, and improvement of abnormal states (such as elevated blood pressure).

Works about clinical trials that involve at least one test treatment and one control treatment, concurrent enrollment and follow-up of the test- and control-treated groups, and in which the treatments to be administered are selected by a random process, such as the use of a random-numbers table.

Evaluation procedures that focus on both the outcome or status (OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT) of the patient at the end of an episode of care - presence of symptoms, level of activity, and mortality; and the process (ASSESSMENT, PROCESS) - what is done for the patient diagnostically and therapeutically.

The field of information science concerned with the analysis and dissemination of medical data through the application of computers to various aspects of health care and medicine.

The purposes, missions, and goals of an individual organization or its units, established through administrative processes. It includes an organization's long-range plans and administrative philosophy.

Decisions, usually developed by government policymakers, for determining present and future objectives pertaining to the health care system.

The process of making a selective intellectual judgment when presented with several complex alternatives consisting of several variables, and usually defining a course of action or an idea.

Conditional probability of exposure to a treatment given observed covariates.

A subspecialty of internal medicine concerned with the study of neoplasms.

The circulation or wide dispersal of information.

A method of comparing the cost of a program with its expected benefits in dollars (or other currency). The benefit-to-cost ratio is a measure of total return expected per unit of money spent. This analysis generally excludes consideration of factors that are not measured ultimately in economic terms. Cost effectiveness compares alternative ways to achieve a specific set of results.

Systematic gathering of data for a particular purpose from various sources, including questionnaires, interviews, observation, existing records, and electronic devices. The process is usually preliminary to statistical analysis of the data.

Patient involvement in the decision-making process in matters pertaining to health.

The broad dissemination of new ideas, procedures, techniques, materials, and devices and the degree to which these are accepted and used.

The concept concerned with all aspects of providing and distributing health services to a patient population.

Application of statistical procedures to analyze specific observed or assumed facts from a particular study.

Federal program, created by Public Law 89-97, Title XVIII-Health Insurance for the Aged, a 1965 amendment to the Social Security Act, that provides health insurance benefits to persons over the age of 65 and others eligible for Social Security benefits. It consists of two separate but coordinated programs: hospital insurance (MEDICARE PART A) and supplementary medical insurance (MEDICARE PART B). (Hospital Administration Terminology, AHA, 2d ed and A Discursive Dictionary of Health Care, US House of Representatives, 1976)

Evaluation undertaken to assess the results or consequences of management and procedures used in combating disease in order to determine the efficacy, effectiveness, safety, and practicability of these interventions in individual cases or series.

Works about pre-planned studies of the safety, efficacy, or optimum dosage schedule (if appropriate) of one or more diagnostic, therapeutic, or prophylactic drugs, devices, or techniques selected according to predetermined criteria of eligibility and observed for predefined evidence of favorable and unfavorable effects. This concept includes clinical trials conducted both in the U.S. and in other countries.

New abnormal growth of tissue. Malignant neoplasms show a greater degree of anaplasia and have the properties of invasion and metastasis, compared to benign neoplasms.