Article type
Year
Abstract
Background:
Cochrane Reviews aim to provide people making decisions about health care with the most up-to-date and reliable evidence on the effects of healthcare interventions. Evidence to support clinical decision making is continually evolving and its availability, based on new research, can vary widely according to the individual clinical topic. Although the policy of the Cochrane Collaboration indicates that reviews should be updated every two years this may not be applicable to the majority of reviews. For many reviews, unnecessary updating can be wasteful of valuable time and resources. For some reviews, waiting two years can miss substantial evidence that is being discussed and is changing practice without the Cochrane Review providing relevant input. Recommendations for the adoption of a priority-setting approach, as opposed to a time-based approach, would appear to have merit and have been suggested as a way forward. In many instances the decision whether to update will depend on not only the availability of the research but whether it will add further to the existing review.
Methods:
Updating searches for reviews by Cochrane Review Groups, if not bi-annual, is often done on an ad hoc basis. An alternative or supplemental approach, easily set up by any Cochrane author or editor, could involve constant monitoring of various databases using current technology. We will present several easy and time-efficient strategies using automated email alerts that are individually tailored to PubMed, TRIP Database and DynaMed and that can be used to notify review authors when new evidence is available for their Cochrane Reviews.
Cochrane Reviews aim to provide people making decisions about health care with the most up-to-date and reliable evidence on the effects of healthcare interventions. Evidence to support clinical decision making is continually evolving and its availability, based on new research, can vary widely according to the individual clinical topic. Although the policy of the Cochrane Collaboration indicates that reviews should be updated every two years this may not be applicable to the majority of reviews. For many reviews, unnecessary updating can be wasteful of valuable time and resources. For some reviews, waiting two years can miss substantial evidence that is being discussed and is changing practice without the Cochrane Review providing relevant input. Recommendations for the adoption of a priority-setting approach, as opposed to a time-based approach, would appear to have merit and have been suggested as a way forward. In many instances the decision whether to update will depend on not only the availability of the research but whether it will add further to the existing review.
Methods:
Updating searches for reviews by Cochrane Review Groups, if not bi-annual, is often done on an ad hoc basis. An alternative or supplemental approach, easily set up by any Cochrane author or editor, could involve constant monitoring of various databases using current technology. We will present several easy and time-efficient strategies using automated email alerts that are individually tailored to PubMed, TRIP Database and DynaMed and that can be used to notify review authors when new evidence is available for their Cochrane Reviews.