Medical research will now include elderly

A new trend in healthcare, known as comparative effectiveness research (CER), in which drugs, devices and therapies are studied to determine their effectiveness for a given population, is being expanded to include treatments for elderly patients.

The practice of CER was bolstered by the passage of 2009′s economic stimulus bill, which allocated $1.1 billion to build up the CER infrastructure and pay for research. In addition, the healthcare reform law established a new nonprofit, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, which will help determine research priorities.

At a recent seminar hosted by the Brookings Institution, government officials, academics, researchers and representatives from private companies gathered to discuss the importance of evaluating medical interventions in a wide variety of patients.