HCP’s department head, Barbara J. McNeil, was tapped to chair the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Reviewing Evidence to Identify Highly Effective Clinical Services. The committee’s work was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which had asked the Institute of Medicine to recommend a sustainable, replicable approach to identifying effective clinical services.

The committee produced a report, Knowing What Works in Health Care: A Roadmap for the Nation, which offers a blueprint for a national program to assess the effectiveness of clinical services and to provide credible, unbiased information about what really works in health care. The report recommends that Congress direct the US Department of Health and Human Services to establish a program with the authority, expertise, and resources necessary to set priorities for evaluating clinical services and to conduct systematic reviews of the evidence. The committee proposed that this program also be responsible for developing and promoting rigorous standards for clinical practice guidelines, which could help minimize the use of questionable services and target services to the patients most likely to benefit.

For more information about the committee’s report, see the press release from the IOM and the statement from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.