Knowledge Synthesis:
Six Steps to Information and Evidence
in a palliative care website
Tieman JJ, Rawlings D
JBI Conference
August 2012
Purpose
•
•
•
•
•
•
Role of knowledge in health
Palliative care and nurses
About CareSearch
Why Six Steps
Overview of Six Steps
What we’ve learned
Role of knowledge in health
• Health as a knowledge industry
• What we know from research can
inform clinical decision making,
policy making and service delivery
• Evidence and guidance is growing.
– 75 trials & 11 systematic reviews published every day
Bastian et al, 2010
• How do individuals, services and systems know
about, find and select what is important?
About palliative care
• Cure is not the goal of care
• Referral based, co-morbidity,
multidisciplinary
• Patient and family as unit of care
• Care provided in many settings
• Often a family carer
Palliative care and nurses
• At home/Across settings
– Specialist services, Other Clinical specialist
services, Acute hospital, RACFs, Community,
Rural and remote
• Different roles
– Generalist (RN, EN), Clinical
specialist, Nurse practitioner
• Multidisciplinary team
About CareSearch
• Palliative care resource
– Evidence based
– Online
– Funded by DoHA
• Audience
– Health professional
– Patients, carers, families
• Knowledge Translation framework
– Facilitate access to, and use of, evidence in
practice
Why Six Steps?
• Size of the website
– In one place, but over 2,000 pages
• Best sources being used?
• Familiarity with evidence contexts?
• Creating utility
– Evidence in formats that clinicians can use
– Structured approach to literature
– Awareness of evidence tools
Overview of Six Steps
1. Is there a Clinical Practice page?
2. Check the Review Collection
3. Check for a related PubMed search
topic
4. Build your own PubMed Search Topic
5. Check the CareSearch Grey Literature
6. Find about “How to search”
Breathlessness
Step 1: Clinical
Practice
Step 2: Review
Collection
Step 3: PubMed
Searches
Step 4:
Create your
own search
Step 5: Grey
Literature
Step 6: Learn about
searching
Six Steps Learning Resources
• Six Steps Factsheet
– Summary sheet on the approach
– Over 4,000 sheets ordered
• My Learning Modules 1 & 2
Jan to July use
– My Learning 1: 661
– My Learning 2: 223
Feedback on Six Steps
• Hi thank you for these informative modules, I
have always found it difficult to navigate around
caresearch for some reason so now hopefully
will find it more productive.
• I never wanted to study this sort of stuff, but
your information is very helpful and presented
in a way that is informative and engaged
• This form of education is valuable and
inexpensive, very interesting and more so
appropriate for a dynamic industry.
What we’ve learned
• Not enough to provide resources
– Consider needs and skills of intended users
– Part of a range of activities (e.g. NHN news, QUC)
• Value in a structured approach
– Encourages use of most
appropriate resource
– Promotes understanding of
level of evidence
– Team have a common framework
• Positive feedback and usage
CareSearch would like to thank the many people
who contribute their time and expertise to the project including
members of the National Advisory Group and the Knowledge
Network Management Group.
CareSearch is funded by the Australian Government
Department of Health and Ageing.
www.caresearch.com.au