This at-a-glance, easy-to-use AME Star-Rating System provides physicians and patients with a vital decision-making tool that cuts through the biases and hype often generated by the medical industry to boost the use of a product or treatment at launch into the marketplace. Biases are unintentional influences on the results of the study. Researchers do their best to eliminate these biases by using systematic approaches such as randomization in the selection process that can be likened to chance: for example, using a lottery to blindly pull patient names or numbers from a hat or using a computer program to blindly generate groups.

AME factors into our rating system the biases that are sometimes difficult for physicians or patients to see when reviewing a study. For example, if a researcher is getting paid by the manufacturer of the product or device or has a stake in the company of the device being studied, then that creates financial biases that might not be disclosed in the individual study. AME tracks down that information and factors that bias into an individual study rating and the overall rating of the combined studies.

Below is the system AME uses for financial biases on a star rating of 3 to 5. For the record, AME does not suggest researchers and authors should not be paid by the industry to conduct research studies. AME would like transparency in the research so that readers, i.e. physicians and patients, take these biases into account when using the results of the studies to make medical decisions that will affect their overall wellness and quality of life.

If one or more of the researchers/authors receive money from the company manufacturing the product, procedure or diagnostic test being studied, then this will result in a downgrade in the rating of the individual study and overall rating of the combined studies.

For example, if the study is a Level I study and the two researchers are getting paid $2 million to conduct the study, then AME downgrades a level I to a level IV. AME also adjusts for other biases that will occur because we are all human and through various steps in the research process we may unintentionally introduce our biases. If these biases are accounted and reported, then we can properly measure how much value we should put on the results of the study or studies. Despite our best efforts these biases come into play. There are three main categories of defined biases: selection, measurement and intervention. (Click here “Bias In Research” for a more in-depth review of these biases)

AME provides a magnifying lens for the research, making it easy to weigh the risks and benefits to any medical devices, product or procedure. This will ensure that the safest and most effective treatments are used, and that issues that need to be addressed are corrected before medical devices, products or procedures are introduced to patients. Without transparency, detrimental side effects and complications in devices or products can spill into the medical industry and leak into our medical practice. At AME, we strive for transparency in our research and practice of medicine to ensure we uphold the highest quality care for our patients.