Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: There is an increasing requirement for policy makers to ensure that their decisions are evidence-based. In turn, researchers should conduct research addressing key aspects of health policy questions, in order to render possible an effective information transfer between researchers and decision makers as well as an evidence-based approach to policy making.
Objectives: The aim of the present study was to investigate the extent to which the idea of evidence-based medicine (EBM) is incorporated into the documents describing the functioning of European healthcare systems.
Methods: An electronic search was conducted in the documents available in the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies database, using the text word 'evidence' and the total number of the text word 'evidence' referring to EBM was counted. These representations were then classified into one of the following categories: 1) resources of health care; 2) health technology assessment; 3) organisation of health care; and 4) environment of health care within the society.
Results: Altogether thel documents mentioned the idea of EBM 413 times; however, there were large differences in both the absolute number of mentions and the incidence of mentioning per page of the document. Two-hundred and eight representations of the idea were assigned to one of the four categories listed above. EBM was mentioned 57 times in connection with resources of health care, 31 times with health technology assessment, 56 times with organisation of health care and 64 times in relation to the social environment of health care.
Conclusions: The results of the present study indicate that the methodology of EBM has already been widely used within the documents describing health systems and policies in Europe. However, considerable differences in the extent and depth of applying EBM methodology are detectable in descriptive European health policy documents.
Objectives: The aim of the present study was to investigate the extent to which the idea of evidence-based medicine (EBM) is incorporated into the documents describing the functioning of European healthcare systems.
Methods: An electronic search was conducted in the documents available in the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies database, using the text word 'evidence' and the total number of the text word 'evidence' referring to EBM was counted. These representations were then classified into one of the following categories: 1) resources of health care; 2) health technology assessment; 3) organisation of health care; and 4) environment of health care within the society.
Results: Altogether thel documents mentioned the idea of EBM 413 times; however, there were large differences in both the absolute number of mentions and the incidence of mentioning per page of the document. Two-hundred and eight representations of the idea were assigned to one of the four categories listed above. EBM was mentioned 57 times in connection with resources of health care, 31 times with health technology assessment, 56 times with organisation of health care and 64 times in relation to the social environment of health care.
Conclusions: The results of the present study indicate that the methodology of EBM has already been widely used within the documents describing health systems and policies in Europe. However, considerable differences in the extent and depth of applying EBM methodology are detectable in descriptive European health policy documents.