HHS Seeks to Consolidate CER Data

The Department of Health and Human Services wants to build a Web-based Comparative Effectiveness Research Inventory database to categorize and catalogue federal and non-federal CER research.

"The CER Inventory will serve as a valuable tool for researchers, providers, patients, policymakers and other users," HHS notes in a notice published Jan. 11 in the Federal Register.

The inventory will draw upon primary data sources, including PubMed, HSRProj, ClinicalTrials.gov, and NIH RePORTER. Other content owners wishing to contribute data will submit their records to one of these primary source databases.

"This method will not only help to augment these existing databases, it will enable efficient and effective capture of CER information for the CER Inventory via CER search filters that have been developed for those respective source databases," according to the notice, available here.

The HITECH Act appropriated $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research to develop and disseminate clinical best practices.

--Joseph Goedert