Friday: selections from C2 Evidence-based practice 1

The role of the information service in developing and maintaining a National Guideline Programme
Maurella Della Seta, Rosaria Rosanna Cammarano (Italy)

Maurella Della Seta presented a case of doing a guideline on schitzophrenia. The information specialist worked as a part of a multidisciplinary work group and attended meetings, where a clinical question was defined and databases and keywords were selected. She was responsible for planning and executing the search and providing full text articles.

In the future the role of the information specialist is going to be amended. She will participate in data extraction and analysis and will therefore be recognized as one of the authors.


Does collaboration improve health? Lesley Sander, Mala Mann, Sara Hayes, Fiona Morgan, Hilary Kitcher, Ben Carter (UK)

In 2002 in Wales, an unpublished systematic review did not find evidence that inter-agency collaborative working between local health and local government authorities necessarily improved health outcomes. There was decision to investigate the matter in depth and they submitted a research protocol for Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group. The protocol is titled "Collaboration between local health and local government agencies for health improvement".
The study wants to assess and summarise the effects of inter-agency collaboration on health outcomes and is interested in any intervention that compare a usual or standard care with augmented care and is aimed at improving health. The research process is under way but hopefully in some of the near future EAHIL conferences we will find out if collaboration does improve health.

Supporting evidence-based health in the county hospitals and the health care-educations
Karina Sjögren (Sweden)

The Umeå Medical School was changed toward more evidence-based teaching, and a new EBM course was arranged for medical students in 2001. In 2001-2003 the course was arranged in the 1st semester, then it was moved to the 4th semester and starting from 2009 it will be arranged in the 6th semester. The library is responsible for teaching how to search evidence-based information and has had very good feedback.
The goal is to arrange EBM courses to all staff in Västerbotten's three hospitals, and a course for new EBM teachers is also planned.