The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has joined with six other global organisations to launch a worldwide initiative to create awareness of the need for better evidence to inform health care policy, practice and decision-making in order to improve health outcomes globally.
The inaugural World Evidence-based Healthcare (EBHC) Day will be held on 20 October 2020 and will spotlight the effect of EBHC on health research, policy, practice and patient outcomes.
The initiative is also being supported by the American College of Physicians, the Africa Evidence Network, the Institute for Evidence Based Healthcare, the Guidelines International Network, the Campbell Collaboration, the Cochrane Library and the international research organisation JBI.
EBHC is a worldwide movement with hundreds of organisations working towards improving the science and practice of EBHC.
Professor Gillian Leng, chief executive at NICE, said: “NICE plays a vital role to produce evidence-based guidelines and resources that help commissioners and frontline practitioners, patients and carers, make better informed decisions about health and social care policy and practice. We are therefore proud to support EBHC day."
The importance of having the ability to utilise the best available evidence has been highlighted by the rapid implementation of hand washing and the correct use of personal protective equipment in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We must share best practice for using evidence to improve health outcomes across the globe, now more than ever. In light of the challenges we are all currently dealing with due to Covid-19, NICE is playing an active role in the WHO's Evidence Collaborative for COVID-19 which is reviewing a high volume of ongoing evidence to share with partners across this global network.”
This article originally appeared on Univadis, part of the Medscape Professional Network.
