Every day in the world, important healthcare decisions are made with incomplete or outdated information about the effects (benefits and harms) of the different healthcare interventions available. Evaluating the best available evidence as a whole on a given health problem to make well-informed clinical and health policy decisions is increasingly challenging. Despite constant advances in the appropriation of scientific knowledge and technological developments, there is still a gap among healthcare professionals in producing and using the most current evidence for decision-making. There is a need to strengthen the capacity of the different actors of the health system to better leverage the methodological developments and existing technologies in a fast and efficient manner on which to base their decision-making process.
“Living Evidence to inform health decisions” is a knowledge transfer and capacity-building research project involving the design and evaluation of a model strategy that will allow health system organizations to generate, use, and apply innovative tools to support health decisions to be based on the most recent evidence.
It seeks to apply the methodological approach known as “Living evidence” (LE) which has mainly been developed for systematic reviews (SR), to any other type of evidence synthesis. Particularly those syntheses that are carried out as part of the documents aimed to inform health decision-makers, known as “knowledge transfer (KT) products”.
In practice, LE means continual surveillance for new research evidence through ongoing or frequent searches and the inclusion of relevant new information into the existing synthesis in a timely manner so that the findings of the synthesis remain up to date. This approach, when applied to the resolution of relevant and rapidly changing clinical questions, is optimal to ensure a rapid update of the evidence that informs on the effects of controversial health interventions and/or clinical recommendations, where there are uncertainties.
The living Evidence to inform health decisions project addressed critical features of the LE model that are consistent with recent efforts, to develop a strategy for building capacity among health sector organizations for the production, maintenance, and use of living evidence synthesis. As part of this strategy development process, we defined the living evidence to inform health decisions framework (LE-IHD framework) that seeks to provide empirical support for a range of actions used to incorporate living evidence synthesis in different KT projects. Our aim is that the capacity-building strategy and the LE-IHD framework can be applied to any country or region, increasing the impact of health research, and reducing the costs and time consumption related to KT-products development and updating processes. So all types of healthcare decisions could be based on the most current evidence thanks to it being constantly updated when new studies become available.
As a capacity-building research project, our main objective was to develop and test a strategy that permits obtaining, improving, and retaining new skills and knowledge needed to develop and use “Living evidence synthesis” among members of health system organizations in charge of developing KT products to inform health decisions.
