Introducing evidence-based medicine to plastic and reconstructive surgery.

An effective healthcare system is one in which healthcare spending provides acceptable returns in terms of health outcomes and broad coverage for its citizens. By this measure, the United States healthcare system unfortunately falls short. Tremendous pressure for improvement has given rise to several initiatives designed to decrease healthcare expenditure and improve outcomes, access, and quality of care. The outcomes movement, which is revolutionary in American medicine, has heightened awareness about the need to critically examine our treatment outcomes. However, the early euphoria surrounding the outcomes movement was met with restraint at the realization of its limitations. Although the outcomes movement has verified the effectiveness of many existing treatments in plastic surgery, most of the investments in these projects unfortunately have resulted in few, if any, positive changes for the patient, physician or healthcare system (1). US healthcare is now moving towards the adoption of evidence-based medicine (EBM), which may potentially be another revolution in American healthcare (2).