Article type
Abstract
Background: It takes 17 years to get from evidence to practice. Although often stated, we do not have an accurate way to measure this important time gap in the modern era. At stake is the health of patients and the ability to find the best available evidence when making critical decisions. The Scientific Knowledge Accelerator Foundation is developing measures of the rate of scientific knowledge transfer.
Objective: The goal was to create an objective method for assessing the rate of knowledge transfer from clinical trials to clinical practice guidance.
Methods: A group of experts met virtually each week to develop a protocol by consensus. We then iteratively applied the protocol to selected clinical trials. We refined the protocol based on actual experience. We then developed a software tool to support efficient utilization of the method.
Results: We developed a metric for the rate of knowledge translation from clinical trials to clinical practice guidance, defined as time from publication of results to citation in 2 or more independently published, systematically derived reports intended to guide clinical practice (eg, systematic reviews, guidelines, clinical reference, clinical education, or clinical decision support artifacts).
We discovered that either Scopus or Web of Science could provide us with a comprehensive list of articles that cited a published report.
We clarified “publication of results” as availability through journal publication, preprint publication, trial registry report with results, or regulatory document. “Independently published” was interpreted to mean that the authors do not overlap with each other or with the authors of the clinical trial. We defined “systematically derived” as having a specification of search sources and inclusion criteria for articles citing the original research. We clarified “intended to guide clinical practice” as having the primary intention of informing clinical practice.
Conclusions: We can now measure the rate of scientific knowledge transfer for the specific purpose of guiding clinical practice. A software tool to facilitate this type of investigation is freely available at https://FEvIR.net/RADAR.
Objective: The goal was to create an objective method for assessing the rate of knowledge transfer from clinical trials to clinical practice guidance.
Methods: A group of experts met virtually each week to develop a protocol by consensus. We then iteratively applied the protocol to selected clinical trials. We refined the protocol based on actual experience. We then developed a software tool to support efficient utilization of the method.
Results: We developed a metric for the rate of knowledge translation from clinical trials to clinical practice guidance, defined as time from publication of results to citation in 2 or more independently published, systematically derived reports intended to guide clinical practice (eg, systematic reviews, guidelines, clinical reference, clinical education, or clinical decision support artifacts).
We discovered that either Scopus or Web of Science could provide us with a comprehensive list of articles that cited a published report.
We clarified “publication of results” as availability through journal publication, preprint publication, trial registry report with results, or regulatory document. “Independently published” was interpreted to mean that the authors do not overlap with each other or with the authors of the clinical trial. We defined “systematically derived” as having a specification of search sources and inclusion criteria for articles citing the original research. We clarified “intended to guide clinical practice” as having the primary intention of informing clinical practice.
Conclusions: We can now measure the rate of scientific knowledge transfer for the specific purpose of guiding clinical practice. A software tool to facilitate this type of investigation is freely available at https://FEvIR.net/RADAR.