There are many problems in the selection of outcomes in clinical trials of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), such as insufficient research on the applicability of outcomes, insufficient research of individualized outcomes for syndrome differentiation and treatment, incomplete selection methods for overall/comprehensive evaluation outcomes, lack of evidence in the importance of outcomes for researchers, and insufficient reflection of the humanistic value of outcomes. Although the core outcome sets (COS) may help clinical trialists to select outcomes to a certain extent, the COS has not been widely used at present, and the judgment of the importance of the outcomes in the COS is mainly based on the personal experience of the participants. The lack of methodology will also lead to multiple COS in the same disease area. The authors believe that it is necessary to improve the methodology of outcomes research, especially in the development of COS. Developing evidence and humanistic values framework may be a potential way to help researchers select core outcomes in clinical efficacy evaluation of TCM.