Sitting on mountains of research

Doctors would have to read about 100 scientific papers every day to keep up with the latest techniques and practices in their field. And that reading is only going to increase as the amount of knowledge in the medical field doubles every seven years.

These statistics come from Ian Graham, vice president of knowledge translation at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. “People don’t have a lot of time,” said Dr. Graham. “There’s a lot of research going into what can be done to help practitioners use best practices.”

The 2010 Knowledge Utilization Colloquium (KU 2010) took place in Halifax June 10-11. It was designed to bring together healthcare professionals and researchers and close the gap between what is actually done in a healthcare setting and what are known to be better procedures.

“It’s about taking the best evidence we’ve got and getting it used by clinicians, by the public, by decision makers, by policy makers,” said Carole Estabrooks, professor at the University of Alberta and Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Translation. Dr. Estabrooks co-chaired the colloquium with Ingrid Sketris, professor with Dalhousie's College of Pharmacy.

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because KU 2010 was the third in a series of healthcare meetings to take place in Halifax in recent weeks, which was a challenge for organizers. “One of the problems is that there is a lot of confusion around the terminology,” explained Dr. Graham.

The synthesis of scientific knowledge into information that a doctor or other healthcare provider can easily read is known as knowledge translation. Knowledge utilization is the next step.

“It’s about taking the best evidence we’ve got and getting it used by clinicians, by the public, by decision makers, by policy makers,” said Dr. Estabrooks. “We call it a colloquium because we don’t do the traditional conference things – presentations and abstracts. We try to create a space where we can actually talk about how we (should) advance the field.”

The concept of knowledge utilization really took off in the early 1990s and it continues to grow today. “We know that 20 or 30 per cent of people don’t receive the care they should, or receive care that’s harmful,” said Dr. Estabrooks; an indication of the important work left to be done in knowledge utilization and its related fields of study.

Keynote speaker Colleen Flood, Canada Research Chair in Health and Law Policy and former associate director of the Health Law Institute at Dal, discussed one method of knowledge utilization, which she called a 'best brains exchange.'

“We sit on a mountain of research that’s already there, tons and tons and tons of it,” said Dr. Flood. “How do we get that (research) into the decision makers’ heads?”

During a best brains exchange, researchers and decision makers are brought together in a closed door meeting to discuss a high priority, ministry-identified issue. Researchers present evidence in 20-minute periods so that decision makers receive only the most important information.

Funding for the colloquium came from Dalhousie University, Alberta Innovates – Health Solutions (formerly Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Health Services and Policy Research, IWK Health Centre, Capital District Health Authority, Halifax; and Nova Scotia Department of Health.