Alex Jadad

Last updated
Alejandro (Alex) Jadad
Alex Jadad in 2023.png
Born (1963-08-09) August 9, 1963 (age 61)
Medellin, Colombia
NationalityCanadian and Colombian
Alma mater Pontificia Universidad Javeriana; University of Oxford
Known for Jadad Scale; Evidence-based medicine; Systematic reviews; Clinical trials; Bias; eHealth innovation; Collaborative decision-making; Computational Management
SpouseMartha Garcia (m. 1988)
Children2 (Alia and Tamen Jadad-Garcia)
Scientific career
FieldsFuture of Health and Medicine; Jadad Scale; Evidence-based medicine; Systematic reviews; Clinical trials; Bias detection and reduction; Pain relief; End-of-life care; Artificial intelligence; Machine learning; Medical innovation; Computational Management; Human-machine collaboration
Institutions University of Oxford; McMaster University; University Health Network; University of Toronto
Doctoral advisor Henry McQuay
Other academic advisors David Sackett; Iain Chalmers; Murray Enkin

Alejandro R. Jadad Bechara (Alex Jadad; born August 9, 1963) is a Canadian-Colombian physician-scientist, clinical epidemiologist, public health scholar, health informatician and philosopher whose work focuses on improving health for all, and on transforming healthcare, through networks of trust, living laboratories, simulated scenarios, digital health solutions, evidence-based strategies and creative human-machine collaboration powered by scientific data and collaboration across traditional boundaries. [1] [2] He is also known as the developer of the Jadad Scale, the first validated tool to assess the methodological quality of clinical trials, which has been cited over 25,000 times in the peer-reviewed literature. [3]

Contents

He is the Founder of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation (now the Centre for Digital Therapeutics) in Toronto, [4] a simulator of the future of healthcare and medicine; and the co-author of 'Healthy No Matter What', an evidence-based book that focuses on health as the ability to adapt to life's inevitable challenges. [5]

Since 2021, he has been one of the members of the global Public Health Leadership Coalition. [6] This group, assembled by the World Federation of Public Health Associations [7] from members of over 130 national and international public health organizations, focuses on finding new ways to tackle the most pressing threats to the health and survival of humanity in the 21st century. [8]

Early life and education

Jadad was born in Medellín, and grew up in Montería, Colombia. When he was a medical student at Xavierian Pontifical University in Bogotá, he conducted the first studies on the jargon, the chemical composition and the clinical implications of a drug called 'basuco', which soon became known worldwide as "crack" cocaine. [9] In 1986, he obtained a Doctor of Medicine degree, and in 1990 became a specialist in anesthesiology at the same institution.

In 1990, he was awarded a British Council scholarship and became a Clinical Research Fellow at the Oxford Pain Relief Unit (Now the Oxford Pain Management Centre) of the Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. In 1992, he received the Overseas Research Student Award from the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom, and enrolled as a doctoral student in Balliol College, the oldest school in the University of Oxford, where he received in 1994 the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Clinical Medicine. His doctoral thesis, entitled "Meta-analysis of Controlled Trials on Pain Relief", [10] was published and widely disseminated by the British National Health Service (NHS). This work guided the development of new tools to identify and distill health-related information, enhanced methods to handle big data to support health-related decisions, and contributed to the creation of the Cochrane Collaboration.

In 2017, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Laws by St. Xavier University in Canada, and in 2018 another in Arts by the Open University of Catalonia in Spain, for his contributions to health and innovation.

Areas of interest

Pain relief

During his fellowship at Oxford, he provided clinical pain management and end-of-life care services to patients, and conducted research that demonstrated that neuropathic pain ("pain in numb areas due to nerve damage") could be relieved by opioids. [11]

As part of his doctoral work, he led the creation of the largest database of clinical trials in pain relief, developing new methods to optimize searches of the US National Library of Medicine, complementing them with manual screening of over 1.3 million pages of scholarly journals since 1948 to 1990. This resulted in the compilation of over 8,000 citations of clinical trials on pain relief, and new statistical techniques for the combination of their results, which provided the foundations for the Cochrane Pain, Palliative Care and Supportive Care (PaPaS) Collaborative Review Group. [12]

He was also one of the inaugural members of the Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials (IMMPACT), an international collaborative effort to develop consensus reviews and recommendations for improving the design, execution, and interpretation of clinical trials of treatments for pain. [13]

Evidence-based decision-making

Dr. Jadad's doctoral thesis also included the development of the Jadad scale, the first validated tool to assess the methodological quality of clinical trials in the world. As of November 2024, it had been cited more than 25,000 times in the biomedical literature, being used to identify systematic differences among studies of the same healthcare interventions in more than 10,000 reviews of research in virtually all areas in the healthcare sector. [3]

In 1995, he joined McMaster University in Canada, where he stayed until 1999. During this period, he was Director of the Health Information Research Unit; [14] Co-director of the Canadian Cochrane Centre and Network, [15] Associate Medical Director of the Program in Evidence-based on Cancer Care Ontario, [16] and the Founding Director of the McMaster Evidence-based Practice Center [17] (the first of its kind funded by the US government overseas), and Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. [18]

In 1998, he authored the book with which the British Medical Journal celebrated the 50th anniversary of modern clinical trials. [19] A new edition, co-written with Murray Enkin, was published in 2007. [20]

Supportive, palliative and end-of-life care

In 2000, Jadad moved to the University of Toronto as Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, and Inaugural Rose Family Chair in Supportive Care (a post he held until 2010), which enabled work on the reconceptualization of terms such as 'health' or a 'good death', as a means to guide the design, development, implementation and evaluation of innovations aimed at allowing people, even those living with complex chronic conditions or even terminal illnesses, to consider themselves to be healthy until the end. During his tenure, he led research and innovation efforts to level the playing field for patients and caregivers through personalized hybrid (human and digital) coaching programs, and the use of social networks and computer-mediated communication; and to improve the quality of end-of-life care through peer-to-peer support networks, home-driven telehealth services, and a change in perspective about death and dying by healthcare professionals. [21] [22]

In 2013, he co-authored the World Innovation Summit for Health's report 'Dying Healed: Transforming End-Of-Life Care through Innovation', and effort led by Sir Thomas Hughes-Hallett, designed to promote best national practices and a global agenda for optimal care at the end of life. [23]

He also led research efforts to identify the basic conditions that would constitute a good death, and the first study on the views by clinical, administrative and support staff about the conditions they would like to experience around their own deaths. [24]

Digital health

Upon moving to Toronto, he also became the Founding Director of the Program in eHealth Innovation [25] and Professor in the Department of Anesthesia in the Faculty of Medicine, and in the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. In this capacity, he led the creation of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, [25] (now, The Centre for Digital Therapeutics), a simulator of the future, to study and optimize the use of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) before their introduction into the health system. The construction of the centre was supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the University Health Network, the largest hospital in Canada, where it is located. To support this work, in 2002, Jadad was awarded the Canada Research Chair in eHealth Innovation (Tier 1), which he held until 2015.

Soon after the emergence of the world wide web, he led some of the earliest key studies on the language of digital health; patterns of Internet use among health professionals and patients; ways to improve people's ability to evaluate the quality of online health information; the effect of virtual communities on health; new approaches to use online tools to promote evidence-based decision-making in healthcare; and new ways of using digital tools to respond to major threats to public health (e.g., obesity, complex chronic diseases and pandemics); while anticipating and assessing the risk of harm associated with digital technologies, including wearable devices. [26] [27] [28]

Global collaborative efforts

In 1992, Jadad became the inaugural President of the Colombian Science and Technology Network in the UK, [29] which was part of the Caldas Network, supported by Colciencias, in order to connect the country's scientific diaspora, worldwide. [30]

In 2008, Jadad led a global conversation about the meaning of health, supported by the British Medical Journal. [31] This effort, which included contributions from experts in 52 countries, resulted in a new conceptualization of health as 'the ability to adapt and manage' the physical, mental or social challenges faced by individuals or communities throughout life. [32] In 2018, such efforts led to the description of an integrated network of services that enabled 88.6% and 93.1% of its users to experience positive levels of self-reported health and well-being, while ranking first when compared with the performance of the health systems of the 36 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Trust among payers, service-providing institutions, professionals and users of health services was the key to achieving these results with only 25% of the average expenditure across the OECD (US$500 per person annually. This is equivalent to US$860 when adjusted for purchasing power parity). [33]

In 2010, he was the Editor-in-Chief of When people live with multiple chronic diseases: A collaborative approach to an emerging global challenge, one of the first books in medicine co-created globally using digital technologies. [34] The same year, he chaired and convened the Global People-Centred eHealth Innovation Forum in the European Ministerial Conference. [35]

From 2016 to 2019, he was Director of the Institute for Global Health Equity and Innovation, University of Toronto, a tenure that followed the Global Summit 'Creating a Pandemic of Health', an international event that he co-hosted. [36]

In 2019, he became a member of the Council of the Wise, a group of 43 experts in eight different areas charged by the government of Colombia to produce recommendations about the future of the country in the following 25 years. [37]

In 2021, he was selected as one of the members of the Public Health Leadership Coalition, a group assembled by the World Federation of Public Health Associations to foster evidence-informed decisions about the COVID-19 pandemic and other major existential health threats.

In 2023, his article ‘Facing Leadership that Kills’ was recognized as Paper of the Year, an award sponsored by the Journal of Public Health Policy, during the 2023 American Public Health Association Meeting.

In 2024, he co-chaired the health track of the World Design Policy Conference in San Diego, California, bringing together experts from around the world to imagine and identify the building blocks of a trust-based, positive-sum, scalable and resilient health system for all in the 21st century.

Selected publications

Scholarly articles

Books

Related Research Articles

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References

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  2. ↑ Wiseman H (July 27, 2017). "Dr Alex Jadad is on a world-wide mission to achieve a pandemic of health, happiness and love".
  3. 1 2 "Google Scholar".
  4. ↑ "The Centre for Digital Therapeutics". The Centre for Digital Therapeutics.
  5. ↑ Jadad AR, Jadad-Garcia T (2023). Healthy No Matter What: How Humans are Wired to Adapt. New York: Crown/Penguin Random House. ISBN   9780593240823.
  6. ↑ "Public Health Leadership Coalition". World Federation of Public Health Associations. 2021.
  7. ↑ "World Federation of Public Health Associations". World Federation of Public Health Associations.
  8. ↑ "Public Health Leadership Coalition: A Call to Action". December 20, 2021.
  9. ↑ Caro Barreto DA (2016). La definición del adicto: las aproximaciones científicas al consumo de drogas - Bogotá, 1960-2000 (The definition of the addict: scientific approach to drug consumption - Bogota, 1960-2000) (PDF). Bogota, Colombia: Facultad de Historia, Universidad Javeriana (Faculty of History, Xavierian University).
  10. ↑ Jadad-Bechara, Alejandro Ricardo (1994). Meta-analysis of Randomised Clinical Trials in Pain Relief. University of Oxford.
  11. ↑ Duarte N, Pedraza J, Santos M. (2023). Analgesic treatment in non-cancer chronic pain. School of Health of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal. pp. 26–27. ISBN   978-989-9045-29-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ↑ Wiffen P (2003). "The Cochrane Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care Group: scope and challenges". Palliative Medicine. 17 (3): 232–4. doi:10.1191/0269216303pm839xx. PMID   14694926.
  13. ↑ "IMMPACT: Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials". Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials.
  14. ↑ http://hiru.mcmaster.ca/hiru/ Health Information Research Unit
  15. ↑ http://ccnc.cochrane.org/ Canadian Cochrane Network and Center
  16. ↑ Program in Evidence-Based Care (PEBC) (Program in Evidence-based Care of Cancer Care Ontario)
  17. ↑ http://www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/ceb/acts/epc.htm McMaster Evidence-based Practice Center
  18. ↑ http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/ceb/ Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics
  19. ↑ Vader JP (1998). "Randomised controlled trials: A User's guide". BMJ. 317 (7167): 1258.
  20. ↑ Howick J (2008). "Rethinking randomized controlled trials". CMAJ. 179 (11): 1178.
  21. ↑ Gurnani MV, Agarwal A (2014). "Healthy Lives for All, Until the Last Breath". University of Toronto Medical Journal. 92 (1): 20–24.
  22. ↑ Wagstaff A (2006). "Betting on e-collaboration" (PDF). Cancer World (September–October): 59–62.
  23. ↑ Hughes-Hallett, T; Murray, S; Cleary, J; Grant, L; Harding, R; Jadad, A; Steedman, M; Taylor, K (2013). Dying Healed: Transforming End-Of-Life Care through Innovation. World Innovation Summit for Health.
  24. ↑ McInerney M (September 8, 2017). "Some big questions about life and death: challenging "conveyer belt" of Western medicine and wishing for a loving end". Croakey Health Media.
  25. 1 2 "EHealth Innovation".
  26. ↑ Catto S (October 25, 2000). "Feel Under the Weather in Canada? Log on for an Electronic House Call". New York Times.
  27. ↑ Lewis A (August 2007). "An innovator in global healthcare and human well-being". Floreat Domus. Balliol College, University of Oxford.
  28. ↑ Schroeder S, Schmid S, Martin A, Buhić-Bergner A, Linden M, Vögele C, Bischoff C, Schmädeke S, Adam M, Dreher C, Bencetic D. (2013). "On living a long, healthy, and happy life, full of love, and with no regrets, until our last breath". Verhaltenstherapie. 23 (4): 287–9.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  29. ↑ http://opencharities.org/charities/1047026 Colombian Science and Technology Network
  30. ↑ Granes, J.; Morales, A.; Meyer, Jean-Baptiste (1996). "Potentialities and limitations of the Caldas network of Colombian researchers abroad: case studies of joint international projects". International Scientific Migrations Today: New Perspectives.
  31. ↑ Jadad, Alex (December 10, 2008). "A global conversation on defining health: Alex Jadad and Laura O'Grady".
  32. ↑ Godlee F (2011). "What is health?" (PDF). BMJ. 343: d4817.
  33. ↑ Maranda F (2019). "Achieving World- Class Health Outcomes on a Shoestring". Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.
  34. ↑ Smith R (June 4, 2010). "The rise and rise of "polypathology"". The BMJ Blog.
  35. ↑ Novillo-Ortiz, D; Jadad, A, eds. (2011). The Global People-Centered eHealth Innovation Forum. London: BMJ Group.
  36. ↑ Smith E (2014). "Creating a Pandemic of Health: global conference gathers experts at U of T".
  37. ↑ Colombia: On the path to a knowledge-based society (PDF). Bogota, Colombia: Government of Colombia. 2020. ISBN   978-9585135222.
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