The fourth workshop of the EBM Roundtable’s Learning Healthcare System series, entitled, Redesigning the Clinical Effectiveness Research Paradigm: Innovation and Practice-Based Approaches, was held on December 12-13, 2007, in The National Academy of Sciences Building, Lecture Room, located at 2100 C Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037.

Participants examined the role of innovative research designs and tools that can expedite the development of evidence on clinical effectiveness by streamlining approaches and bringing research and practice closer together. In the context of existing evidence gaps and a need for a substantially improved understanding of comparative clinical effectiveness of healthcare interventions, this workshop explored opportunities presented by emerging research networks and data resources, innovative study designs, and new methods of analysis and modeling that will address the existing evidence gap and the need for a substantially improved understanding of comparative clinical effectiveness of healthcare interventions. Presentations and discussion focused on how these tools and methods can be engaged in a new generation of studies that better address current challenges in clinical effectiveness research.