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Evidence-based clinical policy: case report of a reproducible process to encourage understanding and evaluation of evidence

journal contribution
posted on 2006-01-01, 00:00 authored by G Rikard-Bell, Elizabeth Waters, J Ward
We report within a case study a reproducible process to facilitate the explicit incorporation of evidence by a multidisciplinary group into clinical policy development. To support the decision-making of a multidisciplinary Intersectoral Advisory Group (IAG) convened by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians Health Policy Unit, a systematic review of randomized controlled trials about environmental tobacco smoke and smoking cessation interventions in paediatric settings was first undertaken. As reported in detail here, IAG members were then formally engaged in a transparent and replicable process to understand and interpret the synthesized evidence and to proffer their independent reactions regarding policy, practice and research. Our intention was to ensure that all IAG members were democratically engaged and made aware of the available evidence. As clinical policy must engage stakeholder representatives from diverse backgrounds, a process to equalize understanding of the evidence and 'democratize' judgment about its implications is needed. Future research must then examine the benefits of such explicit steps when guidelines, in turn, are implemented. We hypothesize that changes to future practice will be more likely if processes undertaken to develop guidelines are transparent to clinicians and other target groups.

History

Journal

Internal medicine journal

Volume

36

Issue

7

Pagination

452 - 457

Publisher

Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd

Location

Carlton, Vic.

ISSN

1444-0903

eISSN

1445-5994

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2006, The Authors

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