Specifications: Full Time
Salary: £35,000 - £40,000 DOE
Location: Flexible
Application Closing Date: 16 November 2018

This role is an exciting opportunity to use your experience as an Advocacy & Partnership Officer to make a difference in the field of health care research. 

The Advocacy & Partnership Officer will support Cochrane, the Editor in Chief, the Head of Knowledge Translation, and the Senior Advisor (Centres, Partnerships and Fundraising) in developing and managing strategic partnerships and in preparing advocacy positions. This new role will support the organization’s growth through the proactive management of strategic partnerships, the development and delivery of advocacy positions and will thus help build the profile of Cochrane as global advocate for evidence informed health care and decision making.

We are looking for a self-motivated and highly organised individual who is able to work effectively and collaboratively with a diverse range of contacts across the world.  The successful candidate will also have:

• Master degree in communications; journalism; health sciences or a related discipline relevant to this position.
• Experience of presenting complex information clearly and simply.
• Experience in preparing advocacy campaigns and statements.
• Demonstrable experience in working with various partner organizations.
•  Cultural sensitivity and the ability to work with diverse groups
• Ability to work independently under general direction, willing and able to work in a self-directed way, and able to provide sound advice to contributors and staff members of Cochrane.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with a natural flair for networking, including the ability to produce written material appropriate to policy-makers and partners.
• Experience with using influencing strategies to gain genuine engagement with Cochrane’s mission to achieve organisational goals.
• Time management skills and ability to work flexible hours as needed.
• Experience related to all aspects of the planning and organising of meetings, workshops and conferences.
• Experience of working in an international context.
• Willingness to travel internationally when required.

Cochrane is a global, independent network of health practitioners, researchers, patient advocates and others, responding to the challenge of making vast amounts of research evidence useful for informing decisions about health. We do this by synthesizing research findings to produce the best available evidence on what can work, what might harm and where more research is needed. Our work is recognised as the international gold standard for high quality, trusted information

If you would like to apply for this position, please send a CV along with a supporting statement to recruitment@cochrane.org with Advocacy & Partnership Officer in the subject line.  The supporting statement should indicate why you are applying for the post, and how far you meet the requirements for the post outlined in the job description using specific examples.  List your experience, achievements, knowledge, personal qualities, and skills which you feel are relevant to the post.

For further information, please download the full job description.

Deadline for applications: 16 November 2018 (12 midnight GMT)
Interviews to be held on: (TBC)

Friday, October 19, 2018 Category: Jobs

Salary: Competitive
Location: Flexible, London preferred
Position: Permanent, full time

This role will lead on supporting, developing and implementing Cochrane’s annual events calendar, to help co-ordinate our Colloquium and Governance Meetings, along with supporting event activities of Cochrane Groups.

The role also supports the work of our Knowledge Translation Department including marketing, brand communications and graphic design on behalf of the Central Executive Team (CET).

We are looking for a self-motivated and highly organised individual who is able to work effectively and collaboratively with a diverse range of contacts across the world.  The successful candidate will also have:

• A degree or equivalent experience working within events support and co-ordination; project management experience would be highly advantageous, and/or in a similar role
• Ability to manage multiple projects and work assignment
• Ability to work alongside varied teams in different cultural and linguistic settings
• Exceptional IT skills, including: styles and formating in Word, PowerPoint and Excel with the ability to understand Drupal web editing and registration systems
• Exceptional Adobe Creative Suite (especially Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat) skills
• Impressive interpersonal skills both in person and by teleconference/Skype
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Willingness to work flexibly including outside normal working hours and international travel
• Proven experience of budget planning
• Commitment to Cochrane’s mission and values

Cochrane is a global, independent network of health practitioners, researchers, patient advocates and others, responding to the challenge of making vast amounts of research evidence useful for informing decisions about health. We do this by synthesizing research findings to produce the best available evidence on what can work, what might harm and where more research is needed. Our work is recognised as the international gold standard for high quality, trusted information

If you would like to apply for this position, please send a CV along with a supporting statement to recruitment@cochrane.org with “Events and Brand Support Officer” in the subject line.  The supporting statement should indicate why you are applying for the post, and how far you meet the requirements for the post outlined in the job description using specific examples.  List your experience, achievements, knowledge, personal qualities, and skills which you feel are relevant to the post.

For further information, please see the full job description.

Deadline for applications: Monday 5 November 2018 (12 midnight GMT)

Interviews to be held on: week of 12 November

 

Thursday, October 18, 2018 Category: Jobs

18 October 2018  is World Menopause Day and October is World Menopause Month. Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertility Group has published multiple reviews assessing the effectiveness and safety of interventions in menopausal women, including peri and postmenopausal women. To celebrate World Menopause Day we have collated a special selection of reviews investigating various treatments for menopausal symptoms such as hormone therapy, tibolone, relaxation, exercise, and alternative therapy.

• Black cohosh (Cimicifuga spp.) for menopausal symptoms
• Dehydroepiandrosterone for women in the peri- or postmenopausal phase
• Hormone therapy for sexual function in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women
• Hormone therapy for endometriosis and surgical menopause
• Long-term hormone therapy for perimenopausal and postmenopausal women
• Short-term and long-term effects of tibolone in postmenopausal women
• Relaxation for perimenopausal and postmenopausal symptoms
• Acupuncture for menopausal hot flushes
• Chinese herbal medicine for menopausal symptoms
• Exercise for vasomotor menopausal symptoms
• Bioidentical hormones for women with vasomotor symptoms
• Oestrogen and progestogen hormone replacement therapy for peri-menopausal and post-menopausal women: weight and body fat distribution
• Hormone therapy in postmenopausal women and risk of endometrial hyperplasia
• Oral oestrogen and combined oestrogen/progestogen therapy versus placebo for hot flushes
• Local oestrogen for vaginal atrophy in postmenopausal women
• Testosterone for peri and postmenopausal women
• Phytoestrogens for menopausal vasomotor symptoms

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Free access to all included Cochrane Reviews for 30 days

Falling is a common problem and is an often-overlooked cause of injury in the elderly. Falls increase in frequency with advancing age and increasing frailty. Falls should not be considered an inevitable consequence of ageing. The Cochrane Reviews in this Special Collection focus on the prevention of falls and fall-related injuries in older people, and they provide evidence of effective interventions. The collection includes reviews on the prevention of falls caused by visual impairment, prevention of falls in the community and falls in care settings, and the prevention of falls following major illness. All reviews included in the Special Collection are free to access for the next 30 days (until 17 November), afterwards reviews over 1 year are free to access.

• Read the Special Collection on Preventing falls and fall-related injuries in older people

 

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Cochrane Taiwan aims to promote evidence informed health care in Taiwan, and develops partnerships with institutions in the country to achieve this aim. One of these institutions is the Chang Gung University of Science and Technology (CGUST). CGUST has now been given Cochrane Affiliate status.

CGUST is committed to training healthcare personnel, and promotes evidence informed health care actively. This is the first affiliate of Cochrane Taiwan. Cochrane Taiwan and President Ying-Tung Lau of CGUST signed a memorandum of cooperation in the presence of Taipei Medical University (TMU) President Chien-Huang Lin. It is expected that the Cochrane Taiwan and CGUST will collaborate in teaching, research, promoting evidence informed health care and enhancing knowledge translation to raise awareness of synthesized health evidence in Taiwan.

Cochrane Taiwan, hosted by TMU, was established in 2015 as a Cochrane Associate Centre. Cochrane Taiwan is striving to promote Cochrane’s mission to “promote evidence-informed health decision-making by producing high-quality, relevant, accessible systematic reviews and other synthesized research evidence”. Cochrane Taiwan focuses on establishing a domestic cooperation network to encourage domestic communication and promotion of evidence informed health care.

• Visit the Cochrane Taiwan website

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Dr Chikwendu J. Ede has been announced as the 2018 winner of the prestigious Aubrey Sheiham Leadership Award by Cochrane.

The award is managed by Cochrane South Africa (SA) and presented annually to an African researcher to support the conduct of a Cochrane Review focusing on a priority topic with impact on the health of people living in low- and middle-income countries. The winner is also expected to mentor a novice author from Africa during the review process and, in so doing, develop capacity in research synthesis on the continent.

The award includes attendance at an annual Cochrane Colloquium; costs of face-to-face meetings for the awardee and mentee; costs of travel for periods of dedicated work time; and a period of stay at Cochrane SA or another appropriate site to work on the review.

 Dr Ede is a specialist surgeon and a lecturer at University of the Witwatersrand. The award will be used to undertake a review already registered with the Cochrane Hepato-biliary, titled: Nonselective shunts versus selective shunts for preventing and treating variceal rebleeding in people with portal hypertension.

“Variceal bleeding is a lethal complication of portal hypertension. A third of people living in Africa will bleed from oesophagogastric varices and mortality from this bleed is estimated at 30%,” said Dr Ede. “It’s important to stop such bleeding to reduce morbidity and mortality. This new review will address a gap in knowledge identified by my previous review.”

“As variceal bleeding is a significant health and economic burden in developing countries, there is need for an in-depth study of measures to prevent and treat this condition,” he continued. “This review will provide evidence to show which type of shunt works best for preventing and treating oesophagogastric variceal rebleeding.”

Dr Roseline Ede, a registrar at University of the Witwatersrand, has been included as an author in this review as a mentee.

About the Aubrey Sheiham award

Aubrey Sheiham was a dental epidemiologist who was inspired and encouraged by Archie Cochrane to question many of the practices in medicine and dentistry. His commitment was to improving the health of populations in underdeveloped countries and challenging dental establishments to be far more critical. The misuse of healthcare resources has more serious ethical and health implications in underdeveloped countries because resources for health are generally inadequate. Prof. Sheiham believed that supporting and training key health personnel in the concepts of Cochrane would improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health care. Since 2001, through Prof. Sheiham’s generosity, Cochrane researchers from low- and middle-income countries have been funded and supported to complete a Cochrane Review on a topic of relevance to their region, and to cascade knowledge about Cochrane and evidence-based health care to their local networks.

The evaluation panel for the award consists of the Senior Management Team of Cochrane South Africa.

Unfortunately Dr Sheiham passed away in November 2015.

• Learn more about the Aubrey Sheiham EBHC in Africa Leadership Award
• Visit the Cochrane South Africa Website
• Visit the Cochrane Hepato-Biliary website

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Our Colloquium is Cochrane's annual flagship event, bringing people together from around the world to discuss putting research into important global health questions and promoting evidence-informed health care.  This year, almost 1300 people from 57 countries attended our Colloquium in Edinburgh, UK. The theme was ‘Cochrane for all - better evidence for better health decisions.’  It was a Patients Included event, co-designed, co-produced and co-presented by healthcare consumers, where everyone’s input is valued equally. It focused on key goals of Cochrane’s Strategy to 2020: producing evidence, making evidence accessible, and advocating for evidence.

We spoke to several consumers and patients attending the Cochrane Colloquium in Edinburgh – here are some of their highlights from the event:

• Learn more about consumer involvement in Cochrane
• Edinburgh Colloquium 2018: Round-Up

 

Friday, October 12, 2018 Category: The difference we make

Over the last 30 years Cochrane has strived to advance the importance of conducting systematic reviews of therapeutic strategies, diagnostic tests, and risk factors. Now, the Cochrane community embarks on systematic reviews of prognosis studies in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

Prognosis research has escalated in the last two decades. Today, frequently echoed terms are ‘personalized medicine’, ‘precision medicine’, or ‘risk‐based medicine’, often used as synonyms.

Read a new Cochrane Library Editorial on the work Cochrane Prognosis Methods is doing produce systematic reviews that summarize the huge amount of data and evidence emerging from primary prognosis studies, to enable stakeholders to make appropriate healthcare decisions.

• Cochrane Library Editorial - Implementing systematic reviews of prognosis studies in Cochrane

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Can progestogen help prevent miscarriage?

 Early pregnancy loss, also known as miscarriage, generally occurs in the first trimester. For some women and their partners, miscarriages can happen several times, also known as recurrent miscarriages. While there are sometimes causes for miscarriages that are found, often no clear reasons can be discovered. The hormone called progesterone prepares the womb (uterus) to receive and support the newly fertilized egg during the early part of pregnancy. It has been suggested that some women who miscarry may not make enough progesterone in the early part of pregnancy. Supplementing these women with medications that act like progesterone (these are called progestogens) has been suggested as a possible way to prevent recurrent miscarriage.

This updated Cochrane Review identified a total of 13 trials that enrolled a total of 2556 women with a history of recurrent miscarriages. 

David Haas, Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group Editor said, 

“We found evidence from randomized controlled trials that giving progestogen medication can probably prevent miscarriage for many women with recurrent previous miscarriages. The trials included in this study found that giving progestogen medication to women with recurrent miscarriages early in their pregnancy may help lower the rates of miscarriage in that pregnancy from 26.3% to 19.4%. We believe that these findings are based on evidence of only moderate quality, so we cannot be certain about the results – but can confidently say giving progestogen medication can probably prevent miscarriage. 

“Having miscarriages can be both physically and emotionally difficult for women and their partners. Finding a therapy to help reduce recurrent miscarriages could help women and their partners avoid this and go on to successfully have a baby.”

• Read the full Cochrane Review
• Learn more Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth

Monday, October 15, 2018

Chantal Dumoulin and Licia P Cacciari from Cochrane Incontinence  wanted to find out if pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) helps women with urinary incontinence problems. They did this by comparing the effects of this training with no treatment, or with any inactive treatment (for example, advice on management with pads). We asked Chantal and Lucia questions about this recent Cochrane Review.

1. Please can you describe yourself and your Cochrane Group?

Since 2012 I have held a Canada Research Chair in Urogyneacoogical health and Aging. Our research program's overarching goal is to Improve continence care in older Canadian women. With this goal in mind, I partnered with a New Zealand expert in pelvic floor rehabilitation reviews; Dr. J. Hay Smith and a post-doctoral fellow and physiotherapist from Brazil, Dr Licia Carciari, to update our knowledge of the effectiveness of pelvic floor rehabilitation for urinary incontinence, in women. Conducting this review update will help inform my research program but most importantly will transfer the evidence to patients, clinicians and researchers with the overall goal to improve continence care, in women.

2. What was the background to the Review? 

Stress incontinence is leaking of urine which cannot be easily controlled (if at all) when performing a physical activity. Physical activities could include coughing, sneezing, sporting activities or suddenly changing position. Urgency incontinence happens with a sudden, strong need to urinate. This can often lead to not making it to the toilet in time to urinate, resulting in leakage. Mixed incontinence is where someone has both stress and urgency incontinence.

A wide range of treatments have been used in the management of urinary incontinence, including conservative interventions (such as physical therapy, lifestyle intervention, behavioural training and anti-incontinence devices), pharmaceutical intervention and surgery. This review focus on one of the physical therapies, specifically pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT). 

Pelvic floor muscle training is a program of exercises to improve pelvic floor muscle strength, endurance, power, relaxation or a combination of these. It is a widely used treatment for women with stress, urgency and mixed incontinence.

We wanted to find out if PFMT helps women with urinary incontinence problems. We did this by comparing the effects of this training with no treatment, or with any inactive treatment (for example, advice on management with pads). We also summarized findings on costs and cost-effectiveness.

3. What has changed in this update? 

In this update we included ten new trials, which did not change the essential findings of the prior review. However, the wider range of populations, countries and secondary outcomes within these new trials emphasized the strength of recommendation of PFMT for women with urinary incontinence. There is now one report of reduction of urinary leakage episodes for women with urgency urinary incontinence treated with PFMT and one report of better quality of life for women with mixed urinary incontinence treated with PFMT.

Of note, in almost all new included trials, the PFMT protocols were described in more details, with progressive training based on exercise physiology. Grade A patient reported symptoms and quality of life outcomes were used more often, in line with recent international guidelines recommendations. Finally, we are starting to gather data supporting PFMT cost-effectiveness and the results look promising.

4.  Why was it important to conduct this Review?

Earlier Cochrane Reviews of PFMT are outdated as new trials have been published. There is sufficient uncertainty about the effects of PFMT to suggest that continuing to update earlier Cochrane reviews is warranted.

5. What are the main implications of this research?

This review is important for clinicians and consumers.  Based on the data available, we can be confident that PFMT can cure or improve symptoms of stress urinary and all other types of UI. It’s also important to note that negative side effects of performing PFMT were rare and, in the two trials that did report them, the side effects were minor.

This review is also important for researches, since it highlights the need for more pragmatic, well-conducted and explicitly reported trials comparing PFMT with control to investigate the longer-term clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of PFMT for women with symptoms of stress, urgency and mixed urinary incontinence.

6.  What would you like to see happen as a result of publishing this review?  

The findings of the review suggest that PFMT could be included in first-line conservative management programs for women with urinary incontinence. Clinicians and health care providers should be aware of these evidences.  

• Read the full Cochrane Review
• Visit the Cochrane Incontinence website
  

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Findings suggest that school-based interventions may have a role to play in preventing risk behaviours

Health risk behaviours, such as smoking and drug use, can group together during the teenage years, and engagement in these multiple risk behaviours can lead to health problems such as injury and substance abuse during childhood and adolescence, as well as non-communicable diseases later in life. 

The Cochrane Public Health review team carried out thorough searches of multiple scientific databases and identified 70 studies that looked at ways of preventing or decreasing engagement in two or more risk behaviours, among young people aged eight to 25 years. The studies were divided into groups of individual-level, family-level, and school-level studies and most were conducted in the USA or in high-income countries.

Risk behaviours include:

• tobacco use 
• alcohol use 
• illicit drug use 
• gambling
• self-harm 
• sexual risk behaviour
• antisocial behaviour 
• vehicle-risk behaviour 
• physical inactivity
• poor nutrition

Lead author Georgie MacArthur from the Cochrane Public Health Group summarises, “The findings suggest that school-based interventions offered to children may have a role to play in preventing tobacco use, alcohol use, illicit drug use, and antisocial behaviour. We did not find strong evidence of benefit of interventions for families or individuals, although fewer such interventions were identified. 

Nevertheless, concerns around reporting of studies and study quality highlight the need for additional robust, high-quality studies to further strengthen the evidence base in this field.”

• Read the full Cochrane Review
• Learn more about the work of Cochrane Public Health Group

Friday, October 5, 2018

With numbers of caesarean sections increasing world wide this review looks at non-clinical interventions for reducing caesarean sections.

Caesarean section is an operation used to prevent and reduce complications of childbirth. While it can be a life‐saving procedure for both the mother and baby, caesarean section is not without harm and should only be carried out when necessary. The number of caesarean sections performed has been increasing worldwide. The aim of this updated Cochrane Review was to find out whether non-clinical interventions, which aim to reduce unnecessary caesarean sections, such as providing education to healthcare workers and mothers, are safe and effective. 

The review team from Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care  studied a wide range of non-clinical interventions drawn from 29 studies, mostly in high-income countries. 

Based on high‐quality evidence, they found the following interventions reduce caesarean section rates without adverse effects on maternal or neonatal outcomes. These interventions are mainly aimed at healthcare professionals (nurses, midwives, physicians) and involve using: clinical guidelines combined with mandatory second opinion for caesarean section indication; clinical guidelines combined with audit and feedback about caesarean section practices; and opinion leaders (obstetrician/gynaecologist) to provide education to healthcare professionals.

• Read the full review
•  Learn more about Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care

Thursday, October 4, 2018

President, Campbell Collaboration & long-time Cochrane luminary

Named by Reuters as one of the most influential scientific minds of our time, this week’s guest wears many hats and pursues all kinds of surprising interests. Jeremy Grimshaw has earned a global reputation for translating evidence into genuine changes that improve human health. He’s a Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, President of the global Campbell Collaboration and a long-time Cochrane luminary. And as Ray discovers, he can make complex behavioural science, obscure music festivals and Formula 1 racing the most comfortable of companions in the course of just one lively conversation. Here, Jeremy closes out series 2 of the Recommended Dose with his original insights into health and social sciences research, and throws in some top musical tips for good measure.

• Listen to the Jeremy Grimshaw podcast
• Read the transcript

Listen to Recommended Dose podcasts on SoundCloud, iTunes, Stitcher  or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts. 

Find more details and our show notes the podcast page or follow on twitter  or facebook.

The Recommended Dose is produced by Cochrane Australia and co-published with The BMJ.

Thursday, October 4, 2018

World Mental Health Day (WMHDAY) is being held on October 10th 2018. The World Federation for Mental Health is focusing the 2018 WMHDAY campaign on ‘Young People and Mental Health in a Changing World’. They want to bring attention to the issues our youth and young adults are facing and begin the conversation around what they need in order to grow up healthy, happy, and resilient.

Cochrane Common Mental Disorders Group works with authors from around the world to produce and disseminate systematic reviews of healthcare interventions for treating and preventing a range of mental health problems. Some of the conditions they cover include depression, anxiety, eating disorders, somatoform disorders and suicide.

One recent Cochrane Review of interest is ‘E‐Health interventions for anxiety and depression in children and adolescents with long‐term physical conditions’. Long‐term physical conditions affect 10% to 12% of children and adolescents worldwide; these individuals are at greater risk of developing psychological problems, particularly anxiety and depression. This Cochrane Review found that at present, the field of e‐health interventions for the treatment of anxiety or depression in children and adolescents with long‐term physical conditions is limited to five low quality trials. The very low‐quality of the evidence means the effects of e‐health interventions are uncertain at this time, especially in children aged under 10 years. Although it is too early to recommend e‐health interventions for this clinical population, given their growing number, and the global improvement in access to technology, there appears to be room for the development and evaluation of acceptable and effective technologically‐based treatments to suit children and adolescents with long‐term physical conditions.

•  Visit the Cochrane Common Mental Disorder website

Friday, October 5, 2018

Recently PLOS ONE published a paper from Cochrane Russia, a Research and Education Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, housed at the Kazan Federal University, which presents the first experience of scientific assessment of the quality of Russian clinical practice guidelines on the international criteria of the AGREE instrument.

The authors from Kazan, Kaliningrad (Russian Federation) and Phoenix (Arizona, USA) for the first time applied the AGREE II instrument to clinical practice guidelines for surgical treatment of diseases of the hepatopancreatobiliary system and showed their generally poor quality, highlighting as the best CPG that for chronic pancreatitis.

The AGREE Tool (Appraisal of Guidelines for Research & Evaluation) has become the international gold standard for the evaluation and development of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). However, it has never been used in Russia to develop the health system and improve health policy, while the appreciation of the value of CPGs is high in the academic and leadership health community, and the need for quality CPGs is screaming today.

The AGREE tool is a method of consolidating expert appraisals, it allows assessment of the methodological rigour and transparency of the process of guideline development, ideally should be used in the process of developing CPGs.

Clinical practice guidelines represent the essential tool of health policy based on evidence. Their quality and reliability determine the quality of care and allow to achieve better results of treatment or outcomes in patients.

In the Russian Federation, the majority of clinical practice guidelines have been developed over the past two decades, and many are still under development. Their legal status, both in the provision of medical care, and in its expert evaluation, has not yet been fully determined. The issues of improving the development and use of CPGs in Russia are now widely discussed at all levels of the health system and at the highest government level.

This work was undertaken to improve clinical practice in Russia and to promote health policy development, namely, the development of clinical practice guidelines, dissemination and use that of CPGs that meet the best international standards.

Diseases of the hepatopancreatobiliary system are the most common diseases of the digestive system, requiring surgical treatment. The severity of their complications with high mortality rates and the currently used high-cost technologies for their diagnosis and treatment pose serious challenges for health systems.
The authors asked four experts in this field to evaluate, using the questionnaire AGREE II, independently of each other the following Russian produced CPGs, found as a result of systematic search: 1 CPG – for acute cholecystitis, 2 CPGs – for acute cholecystitis, 1 CPG – for acute pancreatitis, 1 CPG – for chronic pancreatitis, and 1 CPG on cholelithiasis. All CPGs were developed by the associations and scientific societies of specialists from Russia and CIS countries.

All six clinical recommendations received the highest scores for the domain Clarity of Presentation (46-80%) and the lowest domain scores were for Editorial Independence (6-25%), on the whole, experts rated the quality of recommendations low.

The authors believe that these results probably reflect the situation with the quality of clinical practice guidelines in general, and suggest ways to overcome this problem, in particular, the use of the AGREE II tool in developing new and updating existing clinical practice guidelines.

The authors, noting the limitations of their research and analysing the possible reasons for the low quality of the CPGs and the differences in expert assessments, justify the need to repeat the same study in two to three years.

The publication of these results in the journal PLOS ONE, a reliable, peer-reviewed open access journal, gives us confidence that this is the best way to make these results widely known internationally and in the rapidly developing Russian academic health community.

The lead author of this paper, the Cochrane Russia Director, Liliya Eugenevna Ziganshina says that this work represents the first humble steps of Cochrane Russia in launching a project for the systematic assessment of Russian clinical practice guidelines and clinical trial reports. This is essential to enable improvement of medical research and presentation of publications or reports on this research and clinical trials as a basis for the implementation of Cochrane strategy of Knowledge Translation in Russia. Introduction and implementation of unified systematic requirements and standards that ensure quality, reliability and independence of clinical practice guidelines based on principles and tools of evidence-based medicine are urgently needed.

• Read the PLOS article
• Read this news item in Russian
• Visit the Cochrane Russia website

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

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Specifications: Full Time
Salary: £35,000 to £40,000 DOE
Location: London with flexibility to work from home up to 2 days per week
Application Closing Date: 26th October 2018

This role is an exciting opportunity to use your experience as a Business Analyst to make a difference in the field of health care research. 

The Cochrane Library Business Analyst (BA) you will gather, analyse, validate and document business requirements using workshops, interviews, document analysis, site visits, use cases, business analysis, task, workflow analysis and observations, ensuring they are sufficiently detailed, reviewed, signed off, and kept up-to-date and are fully traceable. They will create and manage functional specifications and help identify and validate appropriate solutions, to support business objectives.

We are looking for a self-motivated and highly organised individual who is able to work effectively and collaboratively with a diverse range of contacts across the world.  The successful candidate will also have:

• Experience evaluating information gathered from multiple sources, reconcile conflicts, and translate high-level requirements from the customer into detailed tasks for the technical team.
• In-depth knowledge of feature definition, technical analysis, and software development processes.
• Highly proficient technical skills/knowledge enabling you to work effectively with engineers and understand the technical aspects of the platform(s).
• Ability to translate technical requirements into a form which is understandable by non-technical customers
• Excellent written English
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and the ability to interact professionally with executives, managers, and subject matter experts.
• Ability to assess project requirements and understand processes for gathering, validating and documenting.
• Ability to understand and create workflows of requirements (user journey, functional specification).
• Strong ability to translate business requirements to technical requirements that developers can use to implement.
• Able to work efficiently and effectively with a geographically-dispersed department and organization.

Cochrane is a global, independent network of health practitioners, researchers, patient advocates and others, responding to the challenge of making vast amounts of research evidence useful for informing decisions about health. We do this by synthesizing research findings to produce the best available evidence on what can work, what might harm and where more research is needed. Our work is recognised as the international gold standard for high quality, trusted information

If you would like to apply for this position, please send a CV along with a supporting statement to recruitment@cochrane.org with “Business Analyst” in the subject line.  The supporting statement should indicate why you are applying for the post, and how far you meet the requirements for the post outlined in the job description using specific examples.  List your experience, achievements, knowledge, personal qualities, and skills which you feel are relevant to the post.

For further information, please see the full job description.

Deadline for applications: 26th October 2018 (12 midnight GMT)

Interviews to be held on: (TBC)

 

Monday, October 1, 2018 Category: Jobs

Improving Cochrane evidence uptake in clinical practice is a joint goal of Cochrane Neurological Sciences and Cochrane Italy. They have been making progress with their annual Summer Schools. Over a week they gather young doctors to talk about clinical decision making, evidence-based medicine, and the methodology behind Cochrane Reviews.

• Visit Cochrane Neurological Sciences website
• Visit Cochrane Italy website
• See what Cochrane training is happening near you

Thursday, October 11, 2018

 

Our annual meeting, the Cochrane Colloquium, had patient involvement as central theme for 2018. We took the chance to meet two of the Cochrane Eddective Practice and Organizsation of Care authors of the newly published review, ‘Patient‐mediated interventions to improve professional practice’, to get their reflections on patient involvement in clinical practice as it linked so well with the theme of the Cochrane Colloquium.

Healthcare professionals are important contributors to healthcare quality and patient safety, but their performance does not always follow recommended clinical practice. There are many approaches to influencing practice among healthcare professionals. In this review, authors assessed the effectiveness of patient‐mediated interventions on healthcare professionals' performance. Examples of patient‐mediated interventions include 1) patient‐reported health information, 2) patient information, 3) patient education, 4) patient feedback about clinical practice, 5) patient decision aids, 6) patients, or patient representatives, being members of a committee or board, and 7) patient‐led training or education of healthcare professionals

25 studies with a total of 12,268 patients were included in this Cochrane Review. The review  found:

• Patients can improve the performance of healthcare professionals through a broad range of approaches. Strategies where patients give healthcare professionals information about themselves and patient education are promising
• It seems fair to imply that patient-mediated interventions, where communication with and involvement of patients is a given, indeed improve the quality of healthcare.

“We do Cochrane reviews to improve healthcare, this review shows patients can influence the quality of the healthcare they receive by influencing healthcare professionals. Not only can it improve their own healthcare but the care others receive too, ” say Martita S Fonhus, lead author of the Cochrane Review.

Therese K Dalsbo, co-author, added: “In this way patients can think of themselves as responsible for their own care and that of others later on. The colloquium put patients at the heart of the event, a sentiment we agree with, this democratic approach affects the healthcare we all receive."

Fonhus concluded: “An informed patient leads to better health, there are two pathways. One which improves the patients own health and one which improves the practice of the clinician. Patients can help clinicians to remember all they need to do – especially given that clinical encounters are often so brief.”

• Read the full review
• Visit the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care website
• Learn more about our Patients Included Colloquium

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

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The recording of this year’s Cochrane Annual General Meeting, held on Monday 17 September at the Cochrane Colloquium in Edinburgh, is now available.

 

All proposed Resolutions were passed by the Members at the meeting. The results of the votes are available at agm.cochrane.org. Draft minutes from the meeting will be sent to Members in due course.

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

The Cochrane Colloquium is an annual event, bringing people together from around the world to discuss research into important global health questions and promote evidence-informed health care.  This year the theme is ‘Cochrane for all - better evidence for better health decisions’.  It was a Patients Included event, co-designed, co-produced and co-presented by healthcare consumers, where everyone’s input is valued equally. It focused on key goals of Cochrane’s Strategy to 2020: producing evidence, making evidence accessible, and advocating for evidence.

Colloquium by the numbers

• 1275+ attendees from over 57 countries
• 82 workshops
• 243 posters
• 222 oral presentations

 Colloquium Podcasts

For the first time at a Cochrane Colloquium, we took the conversation #BeyondTheRoom. Beyond the Room is a digital conference service, started in 2016 by André Tomlin from the Mental Elf. Its aim is to increase the reach and impact of health events by live tweeting and podcasting from them, to involve people virtually and facilitate a much more democratic conversation. Our Beyond the Room team have recorded podcasts with some of the speakers and presenters at the Colloquium - Have a listen!

For this year’s Patients Included Cochrane Colloquium, Richard Morley interviewed Simon Denegri, National Director for Patients, Carers and the Public, UK National Institute of Health Research.

Edinburgh Colloquium Pictures

Browse through pictures taken at the Colloquium!

• 16th September
• 17th September
• 18th September

Abstracts

• Browse or search the 2018 Colloquium abstracts

Videos from the colloquium

• Watch the Keynotes
• Cochrane Annual General Meeting
• Cochrane's Knowledge Translation showcase 2018

Wednesday, September 26, 2018