InterTASC Information Specialists’ Sub-Group (ISSG) Workshop

Suzy Paisley, Anna Cantrell, Ruth Wong, Fiona Campbell, Rachid Rafia, Nick Latimer and Eva Kaltenthaler from HEDS attended the first InterTASC Information Specialists’ Sub-Group (ISSG) Workshop hosted by the University of Exeter on Wednesday 9^th July.  135 delegates representing various stakeholders (InterTASC members, NICE, pharmaceutical industry, and event sponsors) in Health Technology Assessment were present at the workshop. The day was very busy with the first half comprising talks on views from four different stakeholders (Evidence Review Groups, pharmaceutical industry, NICE and ISSG).  Suzy Paisley presented on the views and reflections from the ISSG group. This was followed by an hour of questions and discussion.

Four posters from HEDS were presented at the workshop:

Anna Cantrell “Do we need to search MEDLINE and Embase for RCTs when CENTRAL should be sufficient?: a case study of search methods trialled in a HTA review of interventions to prevent postnatal depression”

Ruth Wong “Assessing searches in Single Technology Appraisals: a comparative study of UK and German checklists”

Louise Preston “Improving search efficiency by limiting searches for diagnostic studies to Medline and EMBASE: an exploratory study”

Nick Latimer "Treatment switching in randomised controlled trials: implications for trial design"

Anna Cantrell (left) and Suzy Paisley in Exeter

In the second half of the day, three useful talks were given on trial registers searching, web-searching for HTA reports, and finding information on adverse drug effects. The workshop finished with an interesting talk by Tom Jefferson on Hayashi’s problem: The use of regulatory information for research synthesis. More details about the speakers and workshop can be found here.

Words and image by Ruth Wong