Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: The IQWiG produces evidence-based health information (HI) that is updated every three years. Maintaining a fixed update cycle requires a major investment of resources and does not always appear to provide the most suitable timeframes for some of the information.
Objectives: 1) Which solutions does the current literature offer for updating HI? 2) How do other international organisations deal with this issue? 3) Are there recommendations or suggestions that can be meaningfully applied for our purposes?
Methods: A systematic search of the literature accompanied by supplementary handsearch was performed. Any publications offering data relevant to our objectives were included. The search strategy design was created by two reviewers and the subsequent search was carried out by the same two reviewers. Two people independently viewed the titles and abstracts. Relevant titles were ordered as full articles. One reviewer extracted the data from these articles with a second checking the work. Organisations also involved in the production of HI were contacted via email.
Results: The search produced 2324 hits. Following title and abstract screening 52 references remained. Following full-text assessments, 25 references were included. Six of the organisations we contacted responded to our request.
Conclusions: 1) The current literature does not provide any suggestions concerning optimal update cycles or strategies for HI. 2) Interviews with the organisations showed that they have not implemented a standardised procedure for updating, nor do they have a fixed cycle for updates. Some of the organisations use 'horizon scanning'. 3) The literature identified confirms that regular updates are necessary and that marking information with a recent date sends an important message to the reader. The use of statistical methods to calculate the influence of new study results on meta-analysis effect estimators is highly time-consuming. Nevertheless, this would be a way of identifying HI with stable effects that would remain up-to-date longer. New techniques such as semi-automated title and abstract screening or abbreviated searches may be viable for our updating process.
Objectives: 1) Which solutions does the current literature offer for updating HI? 2) How do other international organisations deal with this issue? 3) Are there recommendations or suggestions that can be meaningfully applied for our purposes?
Methods: A systematic search of the literature accompanied by supplementary handsearch was performed. Any publications offering data relevant to our objectives were included. The search strategy design was created by two reviewers and the subsequent search was carried out by the same two reviewers. Two people independently viewed the titles and abstracts. Relevant titles were ordered as full articles. One reviewer extracted the data from these articles with a second checking the work. Organisations also involved in the production of HI were contacted via email.
Results: The search produced 2324 hits. Following title and abstract screening 52 references remained. Following full-text assessments, 25 references were included. Six of the organisations we contacted responded to our request.
Conclusions: 1) The current literature does not provide any suggestions concerning optimal update cycles or strategies for HI. 2) Interviews with the organisations showed that they have not implemented a standardised procedure for updating, nor do they have a fixed cycle for updates. Some of the organisations use 'horizon scanning'. 3) The literature identified confirms that regular updates are necessary and that marking information with a recent date sends an important message to the reader. The use of statistical methods to calculate the influence of new study results on meta-analysis effect estimators is highly time-consuming. Nevertheless, this would be a way of identifying HI with stable effects that would remain up-to-date longer. New techniques such as semi-automated title and abstract screening or abbreviated searches may be viable for our updating process.