Within Information Resources ,our role in research projects is often based around literature searching and evidence synthesis. Recently two Information Resources staff were members of the research team who were awarded the NIHR HS&DR Evidence Synthesis Centre in Spring 2014 - Anna Cantrell and myself (Louise Preston), along with other ScHARR co-investigators.
The role of the evidence synthesis centre is to "produce evidence syntheses of immediate use to commissioners and providers of health and social care in order to improve the quality, effectiveness and accessibility of care including delivery of services. Reviews conducted under the Evidence Synthesis Centre Programmes seek to address knowledge gaps in a very wide range of topics in areas of identified importance to the service. The finished products are designed to summarise key evidence for busy managers and clinical leaders, while evaluating the quality of information and strength of findings. The aim is to produce authoritative single-source documents which provide simple top-line messages in complex areas".
In our first Evidence Synthesis project, we were asked to answer the following question "What evidence is there for a relationship between organisational features and patient outcomes in congenital heart disease services?"
In order to answer this question, a mutidisciplinary team of ScHARR researchers undertook a rapid review and I had the opportunity to manage this review, alongside lead author Janette Turner and corresponding author Professor Elizabeth Goyder.
Our rapid review which was completed in three months examined the research question using 39 papers and has been published today (Wednesday 4th June) on the NIHR website. Working on this rapid review was a really fascinating opportunity and both Anna and myself are looking forward to future work on the Evidence Synthesis Centre.
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