One is to develop summaries of the best available research evidence and another is to train clinicians and other health care decision makers to find and appraise relevant evidence. Other approaches have been to imbed knowledge prompts in software for drug and test orders and for electronic patient records. These are generically called decision support systems. Another story entirely. As you know any research process requires a review of past studies to provide context.
Some research consciously reviews significant past research to provide a useful summary.
This type of narrative review is open to a number of sources of bias. The author's personal beliefs, the quality and availability of research papers all bias such summaries of research evidence. To overcome these limitations groups such as the Cochrane Collaboration, the National Centre for Clinical Excellence in the UK and here in Australia, the Centre for Clinical Effectiveness at Monash University have developed more rigorous methodologies. As many as 500 trials may be assessed for one such review. These reviews are regularly updated against new research.