DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

EFFICACY, EFFICIENCY &

EFFECTIVENESS
 Efficacy, efficacy, efficacy... These words have perplexingly similar
sounds. They are frequently confused in common discussions and are
frequently used interchangeably in decision science, project management,
and medical research. This is the difference if you're pressed for time:

Efficacy means getting things done

Effectiveness means doing the right
things
Efficiency means doing things right
 Efficacy means getting things done
Usually, when the word "efficacy" is employed, it is in a scientific context. Whether an intervention is effective
depends on whether it can produce the desired outcome, even if only under extremely particular and controlled
circumstances. Effectiveness is the capacity to provide the desired outcome.

For instance, a medication may be able to improve a patient’s symptoms in an ideal

environment, where they are closely monitored so they stick perfectly to the
prescription. If that’s the case, the drug has demonstrated efficacy. Yes, you may need a
very specific protocol, but if you do, the medication does get the thing done (where “the
thing” is improving a patient’s symptoms).

According to Drs. Enrique and Marta Burches, "Efficacy, in the healthcare sector, is the capacity for beneficial change (or
therapeutic effect) of a given intervention (for example, a drug, medical device, surgical procedure, or a public health intervention)
under ideal or controlled conditions." Outside of pharmacological and clinical trials, you won't often hear the phrase effectiveness
because it is a very specialised measurement that makes little sense in real-world settings.
 Effectiveness means doing the right things

However, completing tasks alone is not always sufficient. Although a medicine

is technically effective if it reduces a patient's symptoms in ideal circumstances,
is it effective in the correct way?

For instance, you might develop a highly effective therapy for diabetes that requires the patient to be connected to a machine
continuously for six months while being closely monitored by a medical staff. You can see a difference after six months of
treatment. Although the treatment shows efficacy—it works—if your goal is to treat patients with diabetes realistically, you wouldn't
be able to call it effective because it doesn't work as intended.
 Effectiveness trials in clinical trials focus on how well a medication performs outside of
the meticulously controlled settings of efficacy trials. "There is a movement from
efficacy trials to effectiveness trials in intervention studies that can be represented as a
continuum. Effectiveness relates to how an intervention performs in "real-world"
situations, whereas efficacy refers to how an intervention performs under ideal and
controlled conditions. Since it is probably impossible to conduct a pure efficacy study or
a pure effectiveness study, the distinction between the two types of trials is a continuum
rather than a dichotomy, say Drs. Amit Singal, Peter Higgins, and Akbar Waljee.

When considering other aspects of our lives, such as project

management and general decision-making, the efficacy vs. effectiveness
notion might be beneficial. An notion that seems great in the best-case
scenario might not hold up amid the inevitable turbulence of actual life.
It makes logical to select the solution with the highest efficacy when
deciding between two options with comparable efficacy levels.
 Efficiency means doing things right

Once you have identified a workable solution, you can attempt to make it better by increasing its efficiency. Efficiency is defined in
numerous different ways in the Oxford Dictionary. The first one, "The state or quality of being efficient," is meaningless. The
technical definition is considerably more intriguing than the second one. Efficiency is described as "the ratio of the useful work
performed by a machine or in a process to the total energy expended or heat taken in."

Efficiency is determined by contrasting a solution's input and output. Although inefficiently, you might be able to accomplish the
right things. Efficiency is the practise of carrying out tasks in the least time-, energy-, or cost-intensive manner possible.

Two medications may be equally beneficial in clinical trials if they both successfully reduce patients' symptoms in the real world.
However, a drug won't be regarded as effective if it costs significantly more than the other one. In the same way, when managing a
project or making decisions, you could find a solution that yields the desired outcome but is unnecessarily expensive.
 Malcolm Gladwell writes about a simple yet highly effective
healthcare remedy in his book The Tipping Point: "The Band-Aid
is an inexpensive, convenient, and remarkably versatile answer to
an astonishing diversity of ailments. Millions of individuals may
have been able to continue working, playing tennis, cooking, or
walking over the course of Band-Aids' existence. The ideal kind of
remedy is a Band-Aid one since it requires the least amount of
work, time, and money to solve an issue.
 To summaries: effectiveness means doing the correct thing (does it actually work well? ),
efficiency means doing the right thing (does it work in the most effective way? ), and efficacy
involves getting things done (does it work?). It's beneficial to consider them in this specific order.
First, confirm that the solution can actually provide the desired outcome, even if that efficacy
necessitates highly particular circumstances. After that, evaluate your answer in a real-world
setting. If the solution works, try to find methods to make it more affordable—more effective.
THANK YOU