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Prioritising within a Cochrane Review Group
- 1. Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group
www.liv.ac.uk/evidence
PRIORITISING WITHIN A COCHRANE
REVIEW GROUP
TWEAKING OUR CULTURE
Paul Garner
Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 1
- 2. LIVERPOOL
European Capital of Culture
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 2
- 10. LIVERPOOL
Team culture
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 10
- 14. GOAL ORIENTATED CULTURE
Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group needs GOALS
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 14
- 15. This talk
• Why the Editorial Team developed a strategic plan
• Aspects of implementation
• Implications for the Cochrane Collaboration as a whole
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 15
- 16. What was the need?
Post-review reflective audit
Author 1: district medical officer
Author 2: hospital doctor
AUTHORS and CIDG staff had spent months on this
CONCLUSION
• The system had failed this people
• Neither really had a chance of succeeding
• Cochrane volunteerism was not working
• Failing with our customers: the authors
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 16
- 17. Not responded to one of our main customers
World Health Organization wanted head to head comparisons
of artemisinin combination treatments for malaria
3. One very large review
5. 4 medium sized reviews
7. 14 small reviews (with overview)
Stuck because we knew option 1 was needed, but 2-3 more
compatible with volunteers
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 17
- 18. PROBLEMS RESPONSE
• Delays with
submission
Editors meeting
• Poor quality protocols 2 days
• Reviews we could not
accept Strategic plan
• Massive work load for
full time Editor
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 18
- 21. Definition of impact review
(any of the following)
• Likely to generate considerable interest in the international
public health community;
• has the potential to change policy or treatments with a
substantive impact on the United Nations’ Millennium
Development Goals
• is frequently cited in the scientific literature;
• is of considerable public interest and likely to capture high
levels of press coverage.
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 21
- 22. EACH REVIEW IS A RESEARCH
PROJECT
Needs managing like any other
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 22
- 23. WHAT ARE HIGH PRIORITY TOPIC?
Strategically important or reviews requested
by policymakers with a deadline
With 2+ trials
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 23
- 24. 4 STEPS
Try and elicit authors to do this
3. Appraise title registration form and the team
5. Build team
7. Find support (salary, meetings, visits)
9. Actively manage
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 24
- 25. STEP 1. APPRAISE Title registration
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 25
- 26. APPRAISE TEAM. Only accept if
• Demonstrable topic expertise (published peer-reviewed articles
in the topic)
• Completed at least 1 Cochrane Review or equivalent
• Contact author has time to dedicate to review (3 to 6 months
for review with > 3 trials)
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 26
- 27. Step 2. Build team
If team have potential but have gaps, indicate this to them
See if they can solve it
We do make suggestions
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 27
- 28. CIDG authors from the Africa Cochrane Network
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 28
- 29. Step 3. Find support
• Help find financial support e.g. Salary, author meeting
• Build in deliverables to contract
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 29
- 30. The Iron Team (IRON IN MALARIA)
• Juliana, from Nigeria: Naive author, clinician
• Joseph, MRC The Gambia: Full time researcher
EDITORIAL TEAM ADDED
• Mical Paul Editor and researcher
Extensive experience in SR
• Dafna Research assistant, clinical
Employed for four months
GRANT TO JULIANA
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 30
- 32. Step 4. Actively Manage
• Check on progress
• Dialogue
• Conference calls
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 32
- 33. 2009+
• Further develop response mode for reviews
• Same as “high priority topics” except we need to assemble
review team
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 33
- 34. LOW PRIORITY TOPIC
Results of the review unlikely to be relevant to achieving the
MDGs
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 34
- 35. Assess Team on title registration form
Includes topic expertise by way of discipline or training
Has capacity to do the review
Consortium Partner or Cochrane Centre can provide technical
support
….then accept
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 35
- 36. Implications to the Effective Health Care Research
Programme Consortium
• In developed countries, massive investment in
commissioned systematic reviews
• In developing countries, Cochrane, some basic
courses, but expected to do reviews for free
• Vital to address this fundamental imbalance
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 36
- 37. NEW CADRE OF AUTHORS
3 new authors from the UK:
Self sufficient, know the methods, quietly complete updates
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 37
- 41. Definition of Brand
Initial value Damien Hirst adds his
signature
£ 60,000 £ 1,600,000
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 41
- 42. WHAT IS OUR BRAND?
Quality, timeliness and independence
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 42
- 43. Cochrane reviews
We know we have issues with quality
Every single review effect the future of us all
We need to change collectively before the
funders demand accountability
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 43
- 44. Cochrane Collaboration needs to build the brand
• Fewer, larger, higher quality reviews
• Substantive editor input at title stage
• Teams that include experienced authors
• Fellowships for authors
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 44
- 46. Acknowledgements
• Thanks to Harriet MacLehose for co-managing the development
of the strategic plan and being responsible for implementing it
• And all the editors and staff in Liverpool
© The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 46