The rise and rise of evidence in health care

Health care practitioners (especially doctors) have always given assurances that what they do is efficacious. But tit the past 50 years justification of the effectiveness of health care interventions has attained a new promin ence. Evidence, at least notionally, now lies at the heart of health care p olicy and practice. This article provides an overview of the generation and use of evidence on effectiveness in health care. It explains why: rigorous methodologies have taken hold and describes the major preoccupation with t rying to ensure that research evidence has an impact on clinical practice. The strengths and weaknesses of evidence-based health care are explored to identify the opportunities for profitable transfer of experience across the public sector.