Knowledge Synthesis: Six Steps to Information and Evidence in a palliative care websiteTieman JJ, Rawlings D

JBI Conference August 2012

Purpose

• Role of knowledge in health• Palliative care and nurses• About CareSearch • Why Six Steps• Overview of Six Steps• What we’ve learned

Role of knowledge in health

• Health as a knowledge industry

• What we know from research can inform clinical decision making, policy making and service delivery

• Evidence and guidance is growing. – 75 trials & 11 systematic reviews published every day

Bastian et al, 2010

• How do individuals, services and systems know about, find and select what is important?

About palliative care

• Cure is not the goal of care• Referral based, co-morbidity,

multidisciplinary• Patient and family as unit of care• Care provided in many settings• Often a family carer

Palliative care and nurses

• At home/Across settings– Specialist services, Other Clinical specialist

services, Acute hospital, RACFs, Community, Rural and remote

• Different roles– Generalist (RN, EN), Clinical

specialist, Nurse practitioner

• Multidisciplinary team

About CareSearch• Palliative care resource

– Evidence based– Online – Funded by DoHA

• Audience– Health professional– Patients, carers, families

• Knowledge Translation framework – Facilitate access to, and use of, evidence in

practice

Why Six Steps?• Size of the website

– In one place, but over 2,000 pages

• Best sources being used?

• Familiarity with evidence contexts?

• Creating utility– Evidence in formats that clinicians can use– Structured approach to literature – Awareness of evidence tools

Overview of Six Steps

1. Is there a Clinical Practice page? 2. Check the Review Collection3. Check for a related PubMed search topic4. Build your own PubMed Search Topic5. Check the CareSearch Grey Literature6. Find about “How to search”

Breathlessness

Step 1: Clinical Practice

Step 2: Review Collection

Step 3: PubMed Searches

Step 4: Create your own search

Step 5: Grey Literature

Step 6: Learn about searching

Six Steps Learning Resources • Six Steps Factsheet

– Summary sheet on the approach– Over 4,000 sheets ordered

• My Learning Modules 1 & 2Jan to July use– My Learning 1: 661– My Learning 2: 223

Feedback on Six Steps

• Hi thank you for these informative modules, I have always found it difficult to navigate around caresearch for some reason so now hopefully will find it more productive.

• I never wanted to study this sort of stuff, but your information is very helpful and presented in a way that is informative and engaged

• This form of education is valuable and inexpensive, very interesting and more so appropriate for a dynamic industry.

What we’ve learned

• Not enough to provide resources– Consider needs and skills of intended users– Part of a range of activities (e.g. NHN news, QUC)

• Value in a structured approach – Encourages use of most

appropriate resource– Promotes understanding of

level of evidence– Team have a common framework

• Positive feedback and usage

CareSearch would like to thank the many people

who contribute their time and expertise to the project including

members of the National Advisory Group and the Knowledge

Network Management Group.

CareSearch is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

www.caresearch.com.au