The U.S. Institute of Medicine called on Congress today to “establish a single national resource of health information.” The resource would collect all available data on every drug in the marketplace, and be available to consumers to educate themselves about any and all possible treatments in order to make better-informed decisions with their doctors.

“We need a way to synthesize data about the effectiveness of health care products and services in a standardized, objective fashion that will be considered reliable and trustworthy by all decision makers,” said Dr. Barbara McNeil of Harvard School of Medicine, who worked on the report.

“A system coordinated by a single, national entity that can prioritize and coordinate these evaluations would enable us to sort the wheat from the chaff and make sense of it all,” McNeil said in a statement.

They also want Congress to direct the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a review program that would monitor clinical services and research studies.

“Report seeks one-stop source for health info” [Reuters]
(Illustration: Getty)

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