Evidence-Based Health Care

Professor Jeffrey Aronson, Consultant Physician and Clinical Pharmacologist, gives a talk for the Evidence Based Healthcare lecture series,

The overwhelming volume of evidence and its lack of relevance to patient care and decisions means health professionals require skills to sift evidence more efficiently: discarding what doesn't make a difference to focus on evidence that matters for health This talk will present a simple effective appraisal system based on two first steps to rapidly appraise and sift the evidence for its relevance and application to actual patient care, prior to assessing its validity. Professor Carl Heneghan is Director of CEBM, and an NHS Urgent Care GP, and has been interested for over twenty years in how we can use evidence in real world practice. This talk is being held as part of the Practice of Evidence-Based Health Care module which is part of the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care and the MSc in EBHC Systematic Reviews.

Trials are important; very often they are also inefficient. Trial Forge aims to improve trial efficacy by identifying and then filling gaps in trial methods research. Coordination and collaboration are key: letting a thousand flowers bloom is all very well but it does mean that evidence to support trial decisions is patchy and accumulates very slowly. In addition to introducing Trial Forge, the talk will suggest ways in which you can contribute to it.

In this talk, Dr Felicity Bishop will critically reflect on mixed methods research that she has conducted and discuss the philosophical and technical challenges of mixed methods.

The integration of evidence with clinical expertise and patient values which underpins the delivery of high quality evidence-based medicine. Hard though this often is to achieve in practice, one fundamental principle is that evidence integrated into decision making should be the “current best evidence.” Whilst the amount of research, funded and published, has grown enormously, there is little to suggest concomitant increases in outputs that have led to real improvements in patient care. Equally worrying, the growth and volume of evidence has been accompanied by a corrosion in the quality of evidence, which has compromised medicine’s ability to provide affordable, effective, high value care.

Jeffrey Aronson presents a light-hearted talk on spelling in systematic reviewing. Jeff is a Consultant Physician and Clinical Pharmacologist at the Oxford University Department for Primary Health Care. His research expertise includes methods of classifying, detecting, and reporting adverse drug reactions, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Jeffrey Aronson presents a light-hearted talk on spelling in systematic reviewing. Jeff is a Consultant Physician and Clinical Pharmacologist at the Oxford University Department for Primary Health Care. His research expertise includes methods of classifying, detecting, and reporting adverse drug reactions, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Overdiagnosis is the diagnosis of "disease" that will never cause symptoms or death during a patient's lifetime. Newer, more accurate technologies, and the desire to detect disease even earlier means Overdiagnosis is on the rise. Understanding the impact of Overdiagnosis, how to detect it and what to do about it might stem its inexplicable rise and prevent the epidemic of unnecessary testing. Professor Carl Heneghan is a board member of the Preventing Overdiagnosis conference and has an active interest in diagnostic reasoning and how this can, or in some cases cannot, make a real difference to patient outcomes. He is also Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine at the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford, Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, a fellow of Kellogg College and an NHS Honorary Clinical Consultant and GP.

Healthcare research is all too often plagued by biases that are rooted in poor methods, leading to the wrong result and conclusions and preventing uptake into practice. We need a better understanding of what constitutes rigorous research; what are the different types of research that underpin decision making that matters to patients and how we should go about fixing the problems of poor quality research. There are major structural problems with the current production and use of evidence that needs resuscitating. If left unaddressed, these inherent problems may become entrenched and unsolvable.

Dr Merlin Willcox gives a talk for the Evidence Based Healthcare series. Merlin’s research focuses on global health, particularly primary health care in low-income countries. In such countries, maternal and child mortality is significantly greater than in the UK – one in five children die before their fifth birthday. Primary health care has the potential to save most of these lives, if it is implemented according to best evidence. In this talk Merlin talks about the different studies and designs he has used in his work trying to address child mortality in Africa.

Professor Carl Heneghan gives a talk for the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care programme.

Prof Aksel Tjora, Professor of Sociology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, gives a talk for the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care programme. Demonstrating how the potential of qualitative analysis is developed by maintaining a strong inductive strategy of concept development.

Prof Neal Maskrey gives a talk for the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine seminar series. Decisions made in health care are not strongly based on the best available evidence. There is 40 years of research which explains why this is normal, but we don’t learn much about it from health care curricula because it comes from cognitive psychology and behavioural economics. How do individuals make decisions, how might they make them better, and how does all this fit into the complex skill set I hope the health care professionals looking after me will possess when I need them, hopefully about 20 years from now.

Dr Kamal Mahtani is an NHS GP, NIHR Clinical Lecturer and Deputy Director at the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine. His talk explores why so much research is wasted.

Professor Carl Heneghan gives a talk for the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care programme

Talk by Dr Helen Ashdown regarding three rather different diagnostic studies People: Helen Ashdown

Carl Heneghan gives a talk held on January 11th 2016 Kellogg College. Recommended reading: Strunk Jr, W. and White, E.B. (1999) The Elements of Style, 4th Ed. Longman. ISBN: 978-0205309023. King, G. (2014) Improve Your Writing Skills, 1st Ed. Collins. Mathews, J., Bowen, J M. and Matthews, R W. (2000) Successful Scientific Writing, 2nd Ed. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978-0521789622. Seely, J. (2004) Oxford Everyday Grammar. Oxford University Press. ISBN:978-0198608745 Forsyth, M. (2014) The Elements of Eloquence: How to turn the perfect Englis phrase. Icon Books Ltd. ISBN: 978-1848317338 Gwynne, N M. (2013) Gwynne's Grammar. Ebury Press. ISBN: 978-0091951450 Murray, R. (2011) How to Write a Thesis, 3rd Ed. Open University Press. ISBN: 978-0335244287 Kane, T S. (1994) The New Oxford Guide to Writing. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-0195090598 King, S. (2012) On Writing. Hodder Paperbacks. ISBN:978-1444723250

Professor Carl Heneghan gives a talk for the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine podcast series. EBM has been transformational for healthcare, however, currently it is poorly understood how this has occurred over time. Using Heart Attack as an example, Prof Carl Heneghan will demonstrate and discuss how EBM has saved lives, and invite the audience to consider the consequence of a health system without evidence. More informatiopn can be found here; www.cebm.net/what-has-ebm-done-for-healthcare/

Professor Trish Greenhalgh gives a talk for the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine. Trish Greenhalgh is Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences and Fellow of Green Templeton College at the University of Oxford. She studied Medical, Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge and Clinical Medicine at Oxford before training as an academic GP.

Managing clinical trials, of whatever size and complexity, requires efficient trial management. Barbara Farrell shares from her wide experience.