Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients." The aim of EBM is to integrate the experience of the clinician, the values of the patient, and the best available scientific information to guide decision-making about clinical management. The term was originally used to describe an approach to teaching the practice of medicine and improving decisions by individual physicians about individual patients.
Cochrane is a British international charitable organisation formed to synthesize medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving health professionals, patients and policy makers. It includes 53 review groups that are based at research institutions worldwide. Cochrane has approximately 30,000 volunteer experts from around the world.
The Cochrane Library is a collection of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties provided by Cochrane and other organizations. At its core is the collection of Cochrane Reviews, a database of systematic reviews and meta-analyses which summarize and interpret the results of medical research. The Cochrane Library aims to make the results of well-conducted controlled trials readily available and is a key resource in evidence-based medicine.
Evidence-based policy is a concept in public policy that advocates for policy decisions to be grounded on, or influenced by, rigorously established objective evidence. This concept presents a stark contrast to policymaking predicated on ideology, 'common sense,' anecdotes, or personal intuitions. The methodology employed in evidence-based policy often includes comprehensive research methods such as randomized controlled trials (RCT). Good data, analytical skills, and political support to the use of scientific information are typically seen as the crucial elements of an evidence-based approach.
A systematic review is a scholarly synthesis of the evidence on a clearly presented topic using critical methods to identify, define and assess research on the topic. A systematic review extracts and interprets data from published studies on the topic, then analyzes, describes, critically appraises and summarizes interpretations into a refined evidence-based conclusion. For example, a systematic review of randomized controlled trials is a way of summarizing and implementing evidence-based medicine.
Evidence-based practice is the idea that occupational practices ought to be based on scientific evidence. While seemingly obviously desirable, the proposal has been controversial, with some arguing that results may not specialize to individuals as well as traditional practices. Evidence-based practices have been gaining ground since the formal introduction of evidence-based medicine in 1992 and have spread to the allied health professions, education, management, law, public policy, architecture, and other fields. In light of studies showing problems in scientific research, there is also a movement to apply evidence-based practices in scientific research itself. Research into the evidence-based practice of science is called metascience.
Gordon Henry Guyatt is a Canadian physician who is Distinguished University Professor in the Departments of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact and Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He is known for his leadership in evidence-based medicine, a term that first appeared in a single-author paper he published in 1991. Subsequently, a 1992 JAMA article that Guyatt led proved instrumental in bringing the concept of evidence-based medicine to the world's attention.[2] In 2007, The BMJ launched an international election for the most important contributions to healthcare. Evidence-based medicine came 7th, ahead of the computer and medical imaging. [3][4] Guyatt's concerns with the role of the medical system, social justice, and medical reform remain central issues that he promoted in tandem with his medical work. On October 9, 2015, he was named to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.
Sir Iain Geoffrey Chalmers is a British health services researcher, one of the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration, and coordinator of the James Lind Initiative, which includes the James Lind Library and James Lind Alliance.
The Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) is a health services research centre based at the University of York, England. CRD was established in January 1994, and aims to provide research-based information for evidence-based medicine. CRD carries out systematic reviews and meta-analyses of healthcare interventions, and disseminates the results of research to decision-makers in the NHS.
Health services research (HSR) became a burgeoning field in North America in the 1960s, when scientific information and policy deliberation began to coalesce. Sometimes also referred to as health systems research or health policy and systems research (HPSR), HSR is a multidisciplinary scientific field that examines how people get access to health care practitioners and health care services, how much care costs, and what happens to patients as a result of this care. HSR utilizes all qualitative and quantitative methods across the board to ask questions of the healthcare system. It focuses on performance, quality, effectiveness and efficiency of health care services as they relate to health problems of individuals and populations, as well as health care systems and addresses wide-ranging topics of structure, processes, and organization of health care services; their use and people's access to services; efficiency and effectiveness of health care services; the quality of healthcare services and its relationship to health status, and; the uses of medical knowledge.
The Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre) is part of the Faculty of Education and Society at University College London. Its work is concerned with systematic reviews which use transparent and explicit methodologies for reviewing research evidence in order to be clear about what we know from research and how we know it.
Evidence Informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) is a network, sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO), which attempts to improve public health, especially in developing countries, by coordinating the efforts of policymakers and health researchers.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is the British government’s major funder of clinical, public health, social care and translational research. With a budget of over £1.2 billion in 2020–21, its mission is to "improve the health and wealth of the nation through research". The NIHR was established in 2006 under the government's Best Research for Best Health strategy, and is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care. As a research funder and research partner of the NHS, public health and social care, the NIHR complements the work of the Medical Research Council. NIHR focuses on translational research, clinical research and applied health and social care research.
The concept of team science is a field of scientific philosophy and methodology which advocates using cross-disciplinary collaboration from diverse scientific fields to solve present-day problems. The field encompasses conceptual and methodological strategies aimed at understanding and enhancing the processes and outcomes of collaborative, team-based research.
Lisa Anne Bero, born 1958, is an academic who originally trained in pharmacology and went on to a career studying research integrity and how clinical and basic sciences are translated into clinical practice and health policy. Bero is a Professor of Medicine and Public Health and the Chief Scientist of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado. Previously, she had been Chair of Medicines Use and Health Outcomes at the University of Sydney. From 1991 until 2014, she was Professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy and in the Institute of Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and is currently an adjunct professor there. She is also Chair of the World Health Organization (WHO) Essential Medicines Committee, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Research and Science Policy, and was Co-Chair of the Cochrane Collaboration from 2013 to 2017. Bero has received multiple awards for her extensive mentoring of high school students to junior faculty.
The United States Cochrane Center (USCC) was one of the 14 centers on the world that facilitated the work of the Cochrane Collaboration. The USCC was the reference center for all 50 US states and US territories, protectorates, and districts: the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. The USCC was also the reference Center for the following countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guam, Guyana, Jamaica, Japan, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. The USCC discontinued on February 7, 2018.
Evidence Aid is an international platform that was formed out of the need to deliver time sensitive access to systematic reviews for use in the event of disasters and other humanitarian emergencies. The method of using systematic reviews is to provide evidence for use by policy makers, clinicians, regulators, and even the general public who benefit when these materials are easy to understand and are accessible. The vision of Evidence Aid is to create and satisfy an increasing demand for evidence to improve the impact of humanitarian aid by stimulating the use of an evidence-based approach. Evidence Aid was founded in 2004. It is currently a project that is housed by the Cochrane Collaboration and Queen's University Belfast. Evidence Aid was established by several members of the international Cochrane Collaboration following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Evidence Aid was formed to provide systematic reviews on the effects of interventions and actions of relevance prior to, in the course of and during the aftermath of disasters or other humanitarian emergencies, in order to improve health-related outcomes; their aim is to work with those who need and use this evidence, as well as working with researchers and publishers to facilitate freely accessible materials to meet the information needs for those facing humanitarian emergencies and disasters. Evidence Aid works in collaboration with other organizations including Public Health England; Red Cross Flanders, International Rescue Committee; Centers for Disease Control; Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine; and the University of Oxford.
John Norman Lavis is a Canadian physician based in Toronto, Ontario. He is a tenured professor in the Department of Health Evidence and Impact at McMaster University, where he founded and directs the McMaster Health Forum. He is co-lead of Rapid-Improvement Support and Exchange (RISE).
Peter Tugwell is a Canadian physician and Professor in the Department of Medicine and School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. He is known for promoting clinical epidemiology and championing for health equity worldwide. In 2013 he was named Officer of the Order of Canada for his efforts as "tireless contributor to global health".
Kristin Carson-Chahhoud is an Associate Professor at the University of South Australia, heading a research group in the Adelaide Medical School. Specialising in respiratory medicine, tobacco control and management of tobacco-related illnesses, Carson aims to close the gap between clinical research trials and real-world patient care.
