Institute:Office of National Coordinator (ONC) Workforce Training Curriculum
Component:The Culture of Health Care
Unit:Evidence-Based Practice
Lecture:Summarizing evidence
Putting evidence into practice
Slide content:Summarizing Evidence For many tests and treatments, there are multiple studies such that one study does not tell the whole story As such, there is a growing trend toward systematic reviews or evidence reports to bring together all the evidence on a treatment or test Per the Haynes 4S model (Haynes, 2001), syntheses bring together primary data, whereas synopses make the data available to users in highly digested form Summarizing the evidence presents many methodological challenges ( Helfand , Morton, Guallar , & Mulrow, 2005) 4
Slide notes:4 This lecture discusses summarizing evidence. The idea behind summarizing evidence is that for many tests and treatments, there are multiple studies, such that one study doesnt tell the whole story. One study may contradict others, or studies may complement each other and, taken together, make a much stronger case. For this reason, theres a growing trend toward what are called systematic reviews or evidence reports that aim to bring all the evidence on a given test or treatment together. Remember the Haynes 4S modelit has studies at its foundation, then syntheses and synopses that bring the data together and make it available to users, particularly clinicians, in a highly digested form. Summarizing the evidence doesnt mean simply collecting a few studies and combining their findings. There are methodologic challenges in summarizing the evidence. Such challenges were recently elucidated in a supplement to the journal Annals of Internal Medicine , emphasizing that methodology is required to do summarizations of evidence.