What counts as relevant evidence? Physicians disagree
Providing physicians with evidence from scientific publications when they need it may be the gold standard in evidence-based medicine, but there is a problem. Clinicians do not necessarily agree on what evidence is most useful to them at the point of care to manage a patient.
Researchers from City University London, the Telfer School, CHEO and Poznan University of Technology recently completed a survey of twenty-two pediatric emergency physicians from teaching hospitals across Canada. They asked them to assess the relevance of evidence in the form of systematic reviews for a common set of patient cases. In particular, systematic reviews from the Cochrane Library, a widely used source of best evidence in medicine, were retrieved automatically for 14 patient profiles: pediatric patients with asthma exacerbations presenting at the emergency department. Evaluating the evidence presented, the physicians gave opinions ranging from “very relevant” for a patient case to “irrelevant,” with the majority of evaluations falling somewhere in the middle.
There was, in other words, no consensus on what constitutes relevant clinical evidence for a given patient case, and physicians’ perceptions of relevance were clearly influenced by different factors. This finding suggests that when presenting evidence at a point of care, the evidence “needs to be highly customized with regards to physicians’ preferences and factors specific to a culture of a clinical setting.” The study was by D. O’Sullivan, S. Wilk, C. Kuziemsky, W. Michalowski, K. Farion and B. Kuwawka. All are affiliated with the Mobile Emergency Triage (MET) research group at Telfer, which conducts studies focused on providing computer-based support for a number of decision problems that occur at the point of care in a healthcare institution. Read the abstract and find out more.
Dan Lane discusses ocean law and governance in China
Professor Daniel Lane, a Full Professor at the Telfer School of Management, joined a delegation of the Canadian branch of the International Ocean Institute, IOI-Canada, which was invited to assist the National Institute for South China Sea Studies (NISCSS) with its first China-ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) Academy on Ocean Law and Governance. The Academy, designed to foster a community of ocean governance in the region, was held on January 25–31, 2016.
The participants represented 10 countries from the region: Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and China and came from backgrounds of law and policy, academia, maritime security, resource management, national defence and other aspects of effective ocean governance.
As part of an intensive program of lectures, Professor Lane gave a talk entitled “Coastal Climate Change Adaptation”. “I was impressed by the serious perspective of the participants from the ASEAN with respect to urgent action on coastal climate change,” says Professor Lane. “ This region is one of the most populous and hardest hit areas in the world for storm surge and sea level rise from more frequent severe coastal storms, and they are anxious for new knowledge and collaborative action on managing adaptation measures.”
The participants also visited the Maritime Safety Administration of Hainan Province. This included tours of their Command Centre for Maritime Search and Rescue to see its surveillance and control systems and a patrol craft.
About the IOI
The International Ocean Institute (IOI) is a world leading independent, non-governmental non-profit organisation conducting training and capacity building in Ocean Governance globally. It aims to train young and mid-career practitioners in contemporary approaches to coastal and ocean management, with an emphasis on the moral, ethical and legal values in Ocean Governance (equity and peaceful uses of the ocean).
New international appointments for Jonathan Calof
Jonathan Calof, professor of International Business and Strategy at the Telfer School of Management, has been appointed as Leading Research Fellow of the Research Laboratory for Science and Technology Studies at the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics and Knowledge (ISSEK) at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia. This is a continuation of his involvement with HSE which started with his appointment on their International Advisory Board.
Ranked as one of Russia’s top universities, the Higher School of Economics is a leader in Russian education and one of the top economics and social sciences universities in eastern Europe and Eurasia.
Professor Calof was also named Extraordinary Professor at the North-West University in South Africa, in their School of Business and Governance, to work on an African research program in competitive intelligence.
North-West University is one of South Africa's biggest universities, with three campuses in two provinces. It upholds the promotion of multilingualism as a core practice, with key innovations in place to meet the needs of its diverse student body.
More information about North-West University
Professor Magda Donia Awarded Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Professor Magda Donia has been awarded a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for her research project entitled Leading multicultural global virtual teams. This project will contribute sound measurement tools of virtual multicultural global leadership competencies and capabilities and test the use of an intervention with the aim of improving leader performance in this complex context.
Professor Donia, who is an assistant professor at the Telfer School of Management, earned a PhD in Administration and an MSc from the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University, as well as a BA in Political Science from McGill University.
Professor Donia's main research interests focus on the role of feedback on performance and the motivations (actual and attributed) underlying individual and organizational behaviors giving exceeding formal role expectations. She will receive $109,000 from SSHRC over five years.
Professor Ivy Lynn Bourgeault Awarded Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Professor Ivy Lynn Bourgeault has been awarded a Partnership Development grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to more fully plan a research project entitled Healthy & Productive Knowledge Workers: The Impact of a Personal or Familial Mental Health Issue in Health Care, Education and Accounting/IT Professions & Accommodating Return to Work. Professor Bourgeault will work with a range of professionals in the health, education and finance sector with the objective to improve the overall experience of returning to work of “professional knowledge workers who have experienced mental health and/or cognitive impairment issues either personally or as caregivers.” She will receive $150,000 over two years.
Ivy Lynn Bourgeault is a professor at the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa. She also holds the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Chair in Gender, Work and Health Human Resources.
Professor Bourgeault has garnered an international reputation for her research on health professions, health policy and women's health.
