Recent trends in health care across the United States and internationally have emphasized a novel approach that consists in comparing the effectiveness and efficacy of treatment interventions with a patient-centered emphasis (i.e., evidence-based health care), while ensuring cost constraints, maximizing benefits, and minimizing risks. In this book, experts in comparative effectiveness and efficacy research and analysis for practice (CEERAP) in health care in general address a range of topical issues. The emphasis is on implications for endodontics and nursing, both of which are considered in a series of detailed chapters. Commonalities and differences among CEERAP, utility-based and logic-based analysis and decision-making, and evidence-based and patient-centered practice are defined and discussed. The book concludes by examining applications for CEERAP in developing patient-centered optimal treatment interventions for the next decade.

Francesco Chiappelli, PhD, is a Professor in the Division of Oral Biology and Medicine and the Division of Associated Clinical Specialties, UCLA School of Dentistry, Los Angeles, California. Among a variety of other professional appointments, he is Honorary President of the Brazilian Society of EBD/CER, an Evidence Reviewer and Champion in Evidence-Based Dentistry for the American Dental Association, Visiting Professor at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil, and Director of the International Forum for Evidence-Based Decisions and Comparative Effectiveness Research. Professor Chiappelli is also a past Chair of the Science Information Committee of the American Association for Dental Research. He is a Co-Editor of Nutrition Bytes and is on the editorial board of a number of other international journals. He is the author of some 150 research papers and review articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as many book chapters and a number of books.