Health Affairs Publishes Essays on ISPS Symposium on Evidence-Based Medicine

Health Affairs released a special blog series based on the symposium ISPS held in May 2018 that addressed the results of the ORBITA Objective Randomized Blinded Investigation with Optimal Medical Therapy of Angioplasty) trial. The event brought together cardiologists, health services researchers, social scientists, and former policymakers to consider the implications of the study published by Lancet in November 2017. The ORBITA trial showed that patients who received stents for stable angina experienced no more relief of symptoms than did patients who received a placebo operation that mimicked the real procedure but did not have a stent inserted.

The Health Affairs blogs, “ORBITA: Lessons from a Landmark Trial,” are all written by the presenters of the ISPS event. The writers discuss the cultural, political, regulatory, and financial factors that influence how clinicians responded to this significant study on evidence-based medicine, and also how doctors have chosen not to respond to the study.

Read the introduction to this series written by Alan Gerber and Eric Patashnik, who organized the symposium, and who recently wrote the book: “Unhealthy Politics: The Battle over Evidence-Based Medicine.”  The book received the Don K. Price Book Award from the American Political Science Association in 2018.