Kaiser Permanente Research Method Has Potential To Transform U.S. Health Care System

It was a nuisance and David Gassman put it off for three weeks, but he finally put a little stool sample into a tube and mailed it to a Kaiser Permanente lab.

It's a good thing he did. The test indicated he had colon cancer.

The 68-year-old Oakland resident, who is recovering from surgery, can thank an emerging field known as "comparative effectiveness research." It's an idea that sounds so obvious it's hard to believe it isn't already routine: Rather than simply analyzing whether a drug or treatment method works, researchers compare options to determine which ones do the best job for patients.

Many experts say the approach has such potential to transform the U.S. health system that the federal government will spend $3.5 billion on it through 2019 under national health reforms.