Through finally to the setting up of the Centre for Review and Documentation in York in December 1993 whose aim is to commission and disseminate the findings of reviews in health care. Carole sees systematic reviews and the Cochrane project as being key elements in the trend towards evidence based health care. Andrew discussed the roots of evidence based practice within the medical field and how it is now developing to encompass the whole field of health science. He warned of accepting wholesale the latest trendy initiative. We should beware of the baggage and look to extract the best practice.
Evidence based medicine has the potential to revolutionise many aspects of health education.
Moving the emphasis away from learning at the feet of an expert towards staff making decisions based on evidence by using a range of different resources. The concept gives the information professional a key role in providing access to and disseminating information to health professionals who need to make decisions based on published evidence. Andrew warned against relying exclusively on systematic reviews and emphasised that there were other forms of evidence. Andrew went on to discuss the spread of evidence based medicine to other health disciplines including nursing. Andrew talked about the challenges to information professionals posed by evidence based practice, including the need to develop skills in structured reference interviews, in the use of more sophisticated search techniques when consulting databases and skills in critical analysis of periodical literature.