Today, health care professionals must keep abreast of new diagnostic and therapeutic options. Providers are routinely challenged by their patients about findings reported in the media. Constraints of managed care require them to identify the most cost-effective alternatives. Gathering accurate and relevant literature in the scant time available is not easy. Simply reading the literature is not enough. Practitioners must evaluate data to apply new information to clinical practice.
A new practice paradigm that answers these needs is emerging: evidence-based health care (EBHC). It incorporates the basic principles of critical appraisal, enabling clinicians to interpret data from clinically relevant articles and apply them in clinical management. EBHC involves systematically finding, appraising, and using contemporaneous research findings as the basis for clinical decisions. Evidence-based health care asks questions, finds and appraises the relevant data, and harnesses that information for everyday clinical practice.
EBHC enables clinicians to deal with masses of information. EBHC specifies the steps to identify relevant, useful literature. It also helps distinguish high-quality and low-quality findings. This approach is becoming accepted practice worldwide. It can serve as a common language among health care professionals in different disciplines.
EBHC includes four fundamental steps:
* Formulating a well-balanced clinical question
* Identifying articles with the best evidence that answers the question
* Critically appraising the evidence to assess its validity
* Determining if the findings are applicable to patient care and deciding how to apply them
This web-site provides:
* modules to help readers practice each of the four steps
* links to local and internet resources on evidence-based health care
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Core Faculty Members
Dr. Judith Garrard
Dr. Judith Garrard, Principal Investigator, is Professor, Department of Health Services Research and Policy, School
of Public Health. She teaches courses in research methods, program evaluation, and applications of epidemiology
to health services research. She has recently published a book about how to review the health sciences research
literature. Dr. Garrard's research is in the area of pharmacoepidemiology of medication use by the elderly and patient
outcomes.
Dr.
Amit Ghosh
Dr. Amit Ghosh is Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Medical School. He has taken training
at the 7th UK workshop on teaching Evidence-Based Health Care at University College of London, and he is currently
introducing the principles of evidence-based medicine to residents in his department through journal clubs and formal
training sessions. He also delivered CME program for Primary Care Physicians at the ACP-ASIM meetings and the
University of Minnesota Internal Medicine Updates.
Dr. Linda Lindeke
Dr. Linda Lindeke is Assistant Professor, School of Nursing. She practices clinically in two pediatric sites each
week. She has experience in developing curriculum-based web modules in a team environment, and has redesigned an
interactive TV course for the web. She has been teaching evidence-based health care to master's students in nursing
who are obtaining advanced clinical skills to function as nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, clinical nurse specialists
and nurse anesthetists.
Core Librarians
Julie Kelly
Julie Kelly is an Associate Librarian at the Bio-Medical Library. She has taught information management sessions to
students and faculty throughout the AHC, and has participated in CE and CME sessions for physicians, nurses,
pharmacists and dentists.
Sunny Worel
Sunny Worel is an Assistant Librarian at the Bio-Medical Library. She has participated in Evidence-Based activities
such as morning report and journal club in conjunction with the internal medicine residency program at University of
Illinois. She has taught resident seminars on topics such as searching the literature and the Cochrane.
Collaborating Faculty Members
Dr. Steven Hillson
Dr. Steven Hillson is an Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Medical School. Dr. Hillson has been teaching an
evidence-based medicine seminar in the residency for several years, with a focus on critical appraisal skill development,
improving practice, and acquiring basic skills in clinical epidemiology and quantitative clinical reasoning.
Dr. Ilene Harris
Dr. Ilene Harris is Professor, Medical School and College of Education; and Director of the Medical School Office of
Education-Educational Development and Research. She is a member of the graduate faculty of the Curriculum and
Instruction Department of the College of Education and of the Medical School Health Informatics program.
Dr. Wesley Miller
Dr. Wesly Miller is Professor, Department of Medicine, Medical School. He chaired the Primary Care
Task Force on Evidence-Based Medicine, and is the Vice Chair for Education and Director of Clerkships for
the Department of Medicine.
Dr. Beth Virnig
Dr. Beth Virnig is Assistant Professor, Division of Health Services and Policy of the School of Public Health.
She is an epidemiologist who specializes in studies of health care utilization.
Dr. Mark Yeazel
Dr. Mark Yeazel is Assistant Professor, Department of Family Practice and Community Health, Medical
School. He is the course director for the Preventive Medicine course in year I of the Medical School. Email.
Dr. Donna Brauer
Dr. Donna Brauer is Assistant Professor, School of Nursing. Her research interests include health outcomes and
measurement of health status.
Dr. Jean Wyman
Dr. Jean Wyman is Professor, School of Nursing. Her research focuses on
urinary incontinence and other aspects of gerontological nursing.
Dr. Byron Crouse
Dr. Byron Crouse is Associate Professor and Head, Department of Family Medicine, University of Minnesota Duluth
School of Medicine. Dr. Crouse is the Director of the Minnesota Rural Health School, a program which sends
interdisciplinary teams of students to rural communities.
Dr. Marshall McBean
Dr. Marshall McBean is Professor, Department of Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health. His
research interests include health status and health care utilization among Medicare recipients.
Collaborating Librarians
Ellen Nagle
Ellen Nagle is the Director of the Bio-Medical Library.
Kathryn Robbins
Kathy Robbins is an Associate Librarian and Head of Reference Desk Services at the Bio-Medical Library. She teaches
classes to students, staff, and faculty on information retrieval methods, including those related to the areas of evidence
based health care and the Cochrane Collaboration.
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