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SI01
Evidence Base for Transfusion
Author(s) -
Hyde C.,
Brunskill S. J.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
transfusion medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.471
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1365-3148
pISSN - 0958-7578
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3148.2006.00693_5.x
Subject(s) - odds , presentation (obstetrics) , process (computing) , usable , simple (philosophy) , health care , evidence based practice , medicine , psychology , public relations , computer science , political science , alternative medicine , law , epistemology , surgery , philosophy , logistic regression , pathology , world wide web , operating system
The exponential growth of innovations in health care and research on them has made it essential that we improve systems to get succinct, accurate summaries of evidence on effectiveness to health care workers, patients, carers and donors when they need it. This is one driving force behind JPAC now. However this simple aspiration requires a number of challenges to be overcome: What evidence should we communicate? How should we bring it together? How do we convert the accumulated evidence it into usable messages that will help? How do we make sure the messages reach the people who need them? This presentation will discuss approaches to each of these questions in turn, focusing particularly on explaining what a systematic review is for those who may not have come across it before. An issue of particular concern is the difference between evidence of ineffectiveness and absence of evidence. The latter is often mistakenly considered identical to the former, and we will explain the nature of this problem. Test yourself: is a research study showing an odds ratio of transfusion related adverse events associated with a new process of 1.2 (95% CI 0.5–11) evidence of ineffectiveness or absence of evidence? The importance of identifying uncertainty about the effectiveness of new approaches, and communicating this clearly, is a further issue we will explore. The goal of bringing together evidence on transfusion is a long term goal. As our guided tour of the JPAC site will demonstrate we have made a good start. However, there is still much work to do and we need everyone's help at many different levels to achieve the ultimate goal.