Healthcare Management

Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews

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Healthcare decision makers in search of the best evidence to inform clinical decisions have come to rely on systematic reviews (SRs) of comparative effectiveness research (CER) to learn what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of alternative drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. An SR is a scientific investigation that focuses on a specific question and uses explicit, prespecified scientific methods to identify, select, assess, and summarize the findings of similar but separate studies. It may include a quantitative synthesis (meta-analysis), depending on the available data. Although the importance of SRs is increas- ingly appreciated, the quality of published SRs is variable and often poor. In many cases, the reader is unable to judge the quality of an SR because the methods are poorly documented, and even if meth- ods are described, they may be used inappropriately, for example, in meta-analyses. Many reviews fail to assess the quality of the underlying research and also neglect to report funding sources. A plethora of conflicting approaches to evidence hierarchies and grad- ing schemes for bodies of evidence is a further source of confusion.

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Series Title

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Call Number

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Publisher

: ., 2011

Collation

1-341

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

978-0-309-16425-2

Classification

NONE

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Edition

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Subject(s)

Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for S

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