EBP Centres

Centre for Evidence Based Physiotherapy, Australia

The Centre of Evidence-Based Physiotherapy was established by a small group of clinical and academic physiotherapists. It is based at the School of Physiotherapy at the University of Sydney.

The Centre's mission is to maximise the effectiveness of physiotherapy services by facilitating the clinical application of the best available evidence.

Effective physiotherapy is people-centred, prevention-focused, safe and technically proficient, based on the best evidence available, and managed efficiently. [Adapted from EHA mission statement].

Its main roles are:

1.       Promotion and facilitation of evidence-based physiotherapy.

2.       Research

The Centre maintains PEDro, the Physiotherapy Evidence Database.

Centre for Evidence Based Physiotherapy, the Netherlands

Launched in 2004 - the Centre's mission is to search, collect and disseminate available scientific evidence in the physiotherapy domain for physiotherapists, health care workers, patients and financiers of health care.

The goals of the CEBP are to:

• collect and provide Evidence Based information to physiotherapists by means of web based applications, courses and publications;
• develop, maintain and update Evidence Based Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) for physiotherapy care;
• develop, test and validate indicator driven physiotherapy and patient care;
• facilitate benchmarking of physiotherapy practices and patient data;
• perform implementation research of guidelines;
• maintain a database with RCT’s, reviews and guidelines relevant to the physiotherapy profession;
• maintain a database with outcome measures (full text) and their clinimetric properties (under development) specific for the physiotherapy domain;
• maintain a database with the top 500 full text physiotherapy articles (as rated by PEDro) - available from October 2004;
• perform these activities in an international setting.

On this site you can:

• Find out about Dutch clinical guidelines published and those in production.
• Access a list of international physical therapy clinical guidelines
• Find out about clinical measurement instruments
• Find links to full-text journals
• Search for full text papers (still under development as at 14/12/04)

Centres for Health Evidence Canada

The Centre for Health Evidence uses innovation, instruction, and investigation to help health professionals put their best knowledge to work.

Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, Oxford, UK

The site provides a good range of support and teaching material for EBP, including worksheets, problem-based scenarios, developing Critically Appraised Topics (CATs), statistical calculations for EBP. You can also find out about several EBP courses.

Centre for Evidence Based Mental Health, UK

The Centre for Evidence Based Mental Health in Oxford promotes and supports the teaching and practice of evidence-based mental healthcare.  The centre's website includes a toolkit of resources to help you develop your skills in practicing evidence-based mental health, a web interface for the new journal, Evidence Based Mental Health; full-text of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Clinical Practice Guidelines; OXAMWEB, a comprehensive links site and details of their workshop programme.

Centre for Evidence Based Child Health, UK

The overall aim of the Centre is to increase the provision of effective and efficient child health care through an educational programme for health professionals.

Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, Toronto, Canada

This website aims to help develop, disseminate, and evaluate resources that can be used to practise and teach EBM for undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education for health care professionals from a variety of clinical disciplines.

This site also serves as a support for the book entitled, Evidence-based Medicine: How to practice and teach EBM by David L. Sackett, Sharon E. Straus, W. Scott Richardson, William Rosenberg, and R. Brian Haynes.

The Centre for Clinical Effectiveness (CCE) Monash Medical Centre, Australia

The Centre for Clinical Effectiveness (CCE) aims to enhance patient outcomes through the clinical application of the best available evidence. It undertakes teaching and research activities, and answers requests for evidence from the staff of Southern Health, Melbourne, Australia. Reports produced by the CCE are of three levels -- (1) literature searches with assessment of methodology; (2) critical appraisals; and (3) full reports. All reports involve a systematic search of the published literature. Critical appraisals are evaluative summaries of identified studies based on standard templates. Full reports include syntheses of the available evidence using standard processes.

Recent examples include:

Accelerated rehabilitation for fractures of the femoral neck

Allied health interventions for Friedreich's ataxia

Chronic fatigue syndrome - exercise and cognitive behaviour therapies

Laser therapy for tendinitis

Unit for Evidence Based Practice and Policy

Based at the University College of London, UK. Run educational courses and undertake research relevant to EBP. Multi-professional focus.

EBP Organisations

Cochrane Collaboration

The Cochrane Collaboration is an international organisation that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about healthcare by preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions. It is a not-for-profit organisation, established as a company, limited by guarantee, and registered as a charity.

The site provides links to Cochrane entities: review groups, fields, method groups, consumer network, steering group, centres, secretariat and the Cochrane Library.

Rehabilitation and Related Therapies Field

Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Review Group

GIMBE

Campbell Collaboration

The international Campbell Collaboration (C2) is a non-profit organization that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about the effects of interventions in the social, behavioural and educational arenas. The Campbell Collaboration Library includes the:

• Register of Campbell Systematic Reviews of Studies of interventions in the Social, Behavioural and Education arenas
• C2 Social, Psychological, Education, and Criminological Trials Registry (C2-SPECTR). Currently contains over 10,000 entries on randomized trials and what seem to be randomized trials. Unique in the world, C2-SPECTR is composed of abstracts on completed randomized experiments and on planned experiments. It is updated continuously. Its contents are part of the ingredients for The Collaboration's systematic reviews and the reviewers augment the contents.
• The C2 Titles and Protocol Registries contains all approved Titles and Protocols (plans) for each systematic review proposed by review teams.

International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment

INAHTA was established to facilitate cooperation and the sharing of information amongst the many organisations throughout the world involved in assessing healthcare technology. It was established in 1993 and has now grown to 25 member agencies. The Network stretches from the USA and Canada to Europe and Australia. The Secretariat is located at SBU in Sweden.

Health Technology Assessment International

HTAi will focus uniquely on health technology assessment (HTA) and provide the key forum for all those from the worlds of health care, academia and business interested in the science, development and application of HTA.

HTAi's mission is to support and promote the development, communication, understanding and use of HTA around the world as a means of promoting the introduction of effective innovations and effective use of resources in health care.

As at 1 February 2003 the International Society of Technology Assessment in Health Care (ISTAHC) ceased to exist as an organisation.  

International Health Technology Assessment Sites

This site provides links to HTA sites around the world.

l'agence nationale d'accréditation et d'évaluation en santé

The site for a National French Agency developing clinical guidelines. This site is in French only but some of the clinical guidelines publications are available in English following this link