Evidence-Based Practice

GENERAL

• Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) Resources. HS/HSL’s evidence-based medicine resource page provides detailed information on which resources to use when searching for information that is evidence-based. The resources in this guide follow the structure of the evidence-based medicine pyramid.
• Centre for Evidence Based Medicine. The goal of this website is to help develop, disseminate, and evaluate resources that can be used by health care professionals from a variety of clinical disciplines to practice and teach EBM. This site also serves as a support for the book Evidence-based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM, by David L. Sackett, et al.
• The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine was established in Oxford, England, as the first of several centers around the country whose broad aim is to promote evidence-based health care and provide support and resources to anyone who wants to make use of them. The site includes an EBM toolbox, teaching activities and materials, and an Evidence-Based On-Call demo database.
• The Canadian Centres for Health Evidence site contains the complete set of Users' Guides to Evidence-Based Practice originally published as a series in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
• The Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) was established in January 1994, and aims to provide research-based information about the effects of interventions used in health and social care. It helps to promote the use of research-based knowledge by offering systematic reviews of research on selected topics, scoping reviews which map the research literature, and providing access to three databases: DARE, NHS EED and the HTA database.
• The Cochrane Collaboration is an international organization that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about health care by preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of health care interventions. This site includes a glossary that focuses on terms commonly used within the Cochrane Collaboration, an example of a Cochrane review, and links to Cochrane Group websites. The major product of the Collaboration is the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (accessible in the HS/HSL) that is marketed as part of the Cochrane Library.
• The Evidence-Based Medicine Resource Center is a joint effort of the New York Academy of Medicine and the New York Chapter of the American College of Physicians. The site contains links to Resource Center publications, educational activities, journals, listservs, glossaries, organizations, and databases on evidence-based medicine.
• The Evidence-Based Practice page of the U. S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) provides links to evidence-based practice centers as well as to specific evidence reports submitted by those centers.
• The National Quality Measures Clearinghouse™ is a site for information on specific evidence-based health care quality measures and measure sets. Features include: structured, standardized abstracts containing information about measures and their development; a utility for comparing attributes of two or more quality measures in a side-by-side comparison; and links to full-text quality measures (when available) and/or ordering details for the full measure.
• The National Guideline Clearinghouse™ (NGC) is a public resource for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. The NGC is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The system allows searching by specific subject of interest, or browsing in the Disease/Condition, Treatment/Intervention, and Organization sections.
• Netting the Evidence contains links to sites on appraising and implementing evidence-based practice, as well as links to software, journals, databases and full text documents on all aspects of evidence-based practice.

DENTISTRY

• Center for Evidence-based Dentistry. American Dental Association (ADA)
• The Centre for Evidence-Based Dentistry is an independent body whose aim is to promote evidence-based dentistry worldwide. The Centre is linked to the Institute of Health Sciences in Oxford and, by this link, with a number of other initiatives designed to promote evidence-based clinical practice.
• The Cochrane Oral Health Review Group aims to produce systematic reviews that primarily include all randomized control trials of the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of oral, dental and craniofacial diseases and disorders. The site includes an Oral Health Trials Register, links to reviews and protocols, newsletters and a glossary.
• Dental Topics: Evidence-Based Dentistry provides links to evidence-based practice in the ADA News, the Journal of the American Dental Association, and other resources.

JOURNALS

• Bandolier uses evidence-based medicine techniques to provide advice about particular treatments or diseases for health care professionals and consumers. The content is 'tertiary' publishing, distilling the information from (secondary) reviews of (primary) trials and making it comprehensible. Coverage includes, but is not limited to, mental health, men's health, complementary medicine, diagnostics and palliative care.
• Effective Clinical Practice is a joint publication of the American College of Physicians and the American Society of Internal Medicine. Content focuses on the interface between health services research and clinical practice.
• The PedsCCM Evidence-Based Journal Club publishes critical reviews of clinical trials pertinent to the practice of pediatric critical care.

The following were chosen from the HS/HSL list of electronic journals, and may require a UMNet account. Be sure to read the requirements for accessing the HS/HSL electronic journal collection.

• Evidence-Based Cardiovascular Medicine
• Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Evidence-Based Health Policy and Management
• Evidence-Based Healthcare
• Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
• Evidence-Based Medicine (English ed.)
• Evidence-Based Mental Health
• Evidence-Based Obstetrics and Gynecology
• Evidence-Based Oncology
• International Journal of Evidence and Proof
• Journal of Evidence-Based Dental Practice
• Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing

NURSING

• The purpose of the Academic Center for Evidence-Based Nursing is to advance evidence-based nursing practice, research, and education within an interdisciplinary context. The goal is to turn research into action, improving health care and patient outcomes in the community, through evidence-based practice, research, and education.
• Evidence-Based Nursing is a product of the Evidence-Based Health Care Project of the University of Minnesota. The website includes models of evidence-based nursing, a link to current projects, information on evaluating the quality of nursing research, links to research-based nursing journals, and assistance with teaching evidence-based nursing.

PHARMACOLOGY

• The Therapeutics Initiative presents critically appraised summary evidence primarily from controlled drug trials, and provides evidence-based, practical information on rational drug therapy.

PHYSICAL THERAPY

• The Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) provides access to abstracts of randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews in physical therapy. Most trials on the database have been rated for quality to assist the user in discriminating between trials that are likely to be valid and interpretable and those that are not. A tutorial provides a guide on how to distinguish between probably valid and potentially invalid trials.

SOCIAL WORK/MENTAL HEALTH

• The Campbell Collaboration is a non-profit organization whose goal is to assist in making well-informed decisions about the effects of interventions in the social, behavioral and educational arenas, and whose objectives are to prepare, maintain and disseminate systematic reviews of studies of interventions.
• The Centre for Evidence Based Mental Health (CEBMH) promotes and supports the teaching and practice of evidence-based mental health care. The CEBMH website aims to support mental health professionals in their everyday practice, providing a portal to evidence-based mental health information, and a range of teaching materials.

TUTORIALS

• Evidence Based Medicine: Finding the Best Clinical Literature is designed to assist health care professionals and students become effective and efficient users of the medical literature.
• Introduction to Evidence-Based Medicine was designed by medical librarians at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The tutorial covers: defining evidence-based medicine; constructing a well-built clinical question, identifying searching strategies that could improve MEDLINE retrieval; and identifying key issues that help determine the validity of evidence.

UMB LINKS

• University of Medicine Complementary Medicine Program/Cochrane Collaboration