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The standard care of hospital or emergency department patients experiencing an acute ischemic stroke includes intravenously administered tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). Mobile stroke units (MSUs) are ambulances equipped with staff and a computed tomographic scanner that can allow for tPA to be administered more quickly. This comparative effectiveness trial examined clinical outcomes in stroke patients who received either an earlier diagnosis and treatment using an MSU or standard triage and transport by Emergency Medical Services (EMS). The sample included multicenter cohorts with randomized deployment weeks and blinded assessment of both trial entry and clinical outcomes.

In an effort to make hearing aids more affordable and accessible to U.S. adults with hearing difficulty, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) empowered these adults to self-fit over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. The effectiveness of two self-fit methods, Consumer Decides (CD) and Efficient Fitting (EF), was hypothesized to be non-inferior to the professional-fit method, (Audiology Based, AB). This was evaluated for both short-term (6 weeks post-fit) and long-term (6 months post-fit) outcomes.

According to the World Health Organization, palliative care is "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psycho-social and spiritual." The goal of the study was to generate comparative effectiveness research evidence to support the delivery of coordinated, community-based palliative care that effectively implements care plans consistent with the goals and preferences of older adults with advanced illness and their caregivers.

This study included a pragmatic, two-arm, multi-site randomized controlled trial of older adults (50+ years) with either poor prognosis cancer or end-stage organ failure who were recruited during an emergency department (ED) visit, along with their informal caregivers, to compare nurse-led telephonic case management to facilitated, outpatient specialty palliative care on: 1) quality of life in patients, 2) loneliness, 3) healthcare use in the 12 months following enrollment, 4) symptom burden, 5) caregiver strain, 6) caregiver quality of life, and 7) bereavement.

Black and Latinx patients bear a disproportionate burden of asthma. Efforts to reduce the disproportionate morbidity have been mostly unsuccessful, and guideline recommendations have not been based on studies in these populations. PREPARE (PESRAMHIP) is a pragmatic, open-label trial of 1201 randomly assigned African American/Black and Hispanic/Latinx adults with moderate-to-severe asthma to use a patient-activated, reliever-triggered inhaled corticosteroid strategy (PARTICS) plus usual care (intervention) or to continue usual care.

Participants had one in-person visit to consent, randomize and collect baseline data followed by 15 monthly questionnaires. The primary end point of this study was the annualized rate of severe asthma exacerbations. Secondary end points included monthly asthma control as measured with the Asthma Control Test (ACT; range, 5 [poor] to 25 [complete control]), quality of life as measured with the Asthma Symptom Utility Index (ASUI; range, 0 to 1, with lower scores indicating greater impairment), and participant-reported missed days of work, school, or usual activities. Safety was also assessed.

Antibiotics are considered a feasible treatment for appendicitis, yet appendectomy remains the treatment standard in the United States. Previous randomized trials comparing these treatments excluded important subgroups and recruited small sample sizes but questions remain about the applicability of these previous findings. This study conducted the Comparison of Outcomes of antibiotic Drugs and Appendectomy (CODA) randomized clinical trial to compare antibiotics with appendectomy among adults with appendicitis, including those with appendicolith. Those recruited comprised a diverse population, compared an overall measure of health status as the primary outcome, and included several secondary clinical and patient-reported outcomes, complications, and measures of healthcare utilization.

Community-engaged research is an umbrella term for forms of research that have community and stakeholder engagement as a core principle, for example, patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR), participatory action research, and community-based participatory research. However, the implementation and category of community engagement can vary across a spectrum from minimal engagement to fully collaborative engagement. A major methodological gap is the assessment of stakeholder engagement from a stakeholder perspective. Evaluation of the impact of stakeholder engagement on research development, implementation, and outcomes requires the development and validation of tools that assess engagement. This study's objective was to develop and validate comprehensive and condensed versions of a survey instrument that will be completed by stakeholders and used to assess engagement in research studies from a stakeholder perspective.