Importance of Evidence-Based Medicine Presented in New Issue Brief Available from Elsevier

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25 Apr, 2013, 13:33 GMT

PHILADELPHIA, April 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Report identifies potential impact of evidence-based medicine in meeting today's healthcare challenges

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the availability of the first in a series of issue briefs on evidence-based medicine (EBM). The issue brief - "Building a Business Case for Evidence-Based Medicine" - reveals the urgent need for EBM, as identified in a roundtable discussion of healthcare industry thought leaders at the CMIO Leadership Forum: Transforming Healthcare Through Evidence-based Medicine, last fall in Chicago.

The roundtable discussion, which featured five physicians representing hospital and healthcare technology CMIOs, research directors and clinical professors, was convened by the developers of ClinicalKey, Elsevier's clinical insight engine designed to help physicians quickly locate accurate answers to their clinical questions. The issue brief, based on the roundtable, emphasizes the need for a business case for EBM as a central necessity to enhancing the American healthcare system. According to findings highlighted within the brief, making the business case for EBM will not be attributed to a single event or destination, but will become more of a process or journey.

"By relying on fast, comprehensive, point-of-care clinical reference tools, clinicians will be better able to pursue the 'shared practice' approach so vital to the patient-centered medical home and accountable care," said David Goldmann, M.D., Vice President and Chief Medical Quality Assurance Officer at Elsevier. "EBM solutions have the potential to accelerate and improve clinical decision making and patient outcomes."

EBM is a long-term, problem-based learning process that involves:

Conversion of information needs into focused questions
Identification of the best evidence for answering a question
Review of evidence for validity and clinical usefulness
Application of results to clinical practice
Evaluation of how the evidence performs in clinical applications

Identified within this brief are opportunities and strategies that will assist the healthcare system through the EMB journey such as:

The U.S. faces a serious shortage of primary care clinicians with an estimated increase in the advanced practice clinician workforce by 15 percent within the year; solutions - many involving technologies like clinician insight engines - are already in sight for many practices.
EBM can go a long way in reducing healthcare's failure to implement preventive and patient safety best practices, which typically result in injuries, negative patient outcomes and runaway costs. It can also minimize the burden of overtreatment, where physicians' habits and preferences sometimes trump medical evidence.
In an environment where operating costs continue to collide with declining reimbursement, HCOs struggle to maintain revenue, manage overhead and ensure quality, safety and efficiency. EBM will play a critical role in helping healthcare leaders make informed, disciplined choices on a broad array of challenges-from physician integration, hospital consolidation, strategic alignments and new reimbursement models, to technology optimization, risk mitigation, changing populations, and patient engagement.

Although EBM continues to evolve, it has already proven its capacity to influence top-line healthcare issues. An analysis of EBM's potential impact on healthcare's most pressing challenges, including clinician shortages, waste, accountable care and patient engagement is also identified as an imperative need within the healthcare system and further elaborated on in the issue brief.

The issue brief is available for download at http://ckey.co/ckebmbiz. Subsequent briefs will focus on EBM implementation and the future of EBM.

About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc, a world leading provider of professional information solutions. The group employs more than 30,000 people, including more than 15,000 in North America. Reed Elsevier Group plc is owned equally by two parent companies, Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. Their shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RUK and ENL.