Creating a Community of Practice for Dissemination in Cochrane

Tags: Oral
Lagosky S1
1Cochrane Central Executive Team

Background:

For Cochrane evidence to be used to inform healthcare decision-making, it is important that we share the findings of the reviews with our target audiences in formats and languages that they can understand and use. We do this by creating dissemination products (such as blogshots, podcasts and plain language summaries) which provide a tailored summary of the review findings, appropriate to the needs of the target audience. In 2019, as part of Cochrane’s Knowledge Translation strategy, we developed a ‘Dissemination Checklist’ which aims to help producers of dissemination products improve the quality of the products.

To implement the checklist we ran a training workshop in January 2020 for key people in Cochrane who regularly disseminate Cochrane reviews. The training was the first opportunity to bring together a small group of people from within Cochrane who are committed to delivering high quality dissemination. We invited all those involved to join a community of practice to try to promote the benefits of peer-to-peer learning and support.

Objective:

The aim of the community of practice is to create a space and convene conversations where people interested in (and currently practicing) dissemination can connect to:

1) share information on their work and experiences doing dissemination

2) learn ideas and solutions others doing similar work through peer-to-peer learning

3) increase collaboration on projects and reduce duplication of effort across a wide geographic spread

This presentation will share our experiences in developing and running the community of practice. We will present the challenges, learning and successes from the project.

Project Activities:

The community of practice interacts largely via Cochrane’s Slack channel, through informational emails sent centrally, ad-hoc group web conferences and through face-to-face meetings at Cochrane events. The community is managed by Cochrane Central Executive Team staff, but is a space where members have the flexibility to interact with the community in a way that serves them in their varied roles throughout the organization.

You should attend this presentation if you:

• Are interested in learning more about what a Community of Practice looks like at Cochrane

• Would like to hear about our experiences on the benefits and challenges of sustaining a Community of Practice

• Are curious to know how this Community of Practice is influencing dissemination at Cochrane

Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:

While the act of disseminating evidence, and specifically the dissemination checklist, should help improve the way we share information with consumers, this particular Community of Practice is meant for staff who do dissemination as part of their job. However, questions about consumer involvement emerge in this community, and in such cases the consumer involvement team is consulted and involved.