AAPM&R Cost-Effectiveness Bibliography
Introduction
The leadership of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and
Rehabilitation identified a need for an annotated bibliography that
identified, synthesized, and disseminated information regarding cost-effective
practices related to physical medicine and rehabilitation.
AAPM&R, through its Research Advocacy and Advisory Committee (RAAC),
contracted with the University of Missouri to search the literature and
develop an annotated cost-effectiveness bibliography (CEB) for the benefit of
Academy members. Technical support and partial funding for the project were
provided by the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association (AMRPA).
The specific goals of the CEB project were to:
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Enable the Academy members to have easy access
to evidence of cost-effective practices in physical medicine and
rehabilitation services for use in the development of legislative statements
and research priorities.
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Provide members of the Academy available
evidence of cost-effective practices of physical medicine and rehabilitation
services for use with managed care organizations and other entities with
whom they interact.
The study of cost-effectiveness in medicine, particularly in rehabilitation
medicine, is in its infancy. Whether a cost is worth a given outcome is a
socioeconomic question that only the culture can determine, but to the extent
that health care dollars are spent on a given treatment, it behooves us to act
responsibly and review the data.
The specialty of physical medicine and rehabilitation involves multiple
disciplines and multiple treatment components. Global evaluation of the
process of rehabilitation is not usually feasible and seldom attempted due to
the complex set of treatments provided but rather attention is given to
specific interventions and specific aspects of outcome in cost-effectiveness
analysis (CEA) of rehabilitation.
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