Reviews of Evidence for Treatments

Systematic reviews of evidence for treatments use comprehensive and explicit methods to track down, select and determine the quality of relevant research. The information used in reviews usually comes from randomised controlled trials (RCTs), which are analysed using statistical methods (meta-analysis).

Australians now have free access to the online library of the Cochrane Collaboration. The Cochrane Collaboration is a highly respected international collaboration of health professionals, consumers and researchers who prepare reports on the evidence about health care interventions for the Cochrane Library . The National Institute of Clinical Studies funds a national subscription to the library and plays a key role in promoting the use of research evidence in the health care system. The summaries of Cochrane reviews are included in HealthInsite search results and in HealthInsite topic pages.

The Australasian Cochrane Centre is part of the Monash Institute of Health Services Research, located at the Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, Victoria. The Centre is funded by the Australian Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing. It is one of a number of Cochrane centres established world-wide to coordinate the activities of the Cochrane Collaboration.

The Centre for Evidence-Based Physiotherapy  (CEBP) is based at the School of Physiotherapy at the University of Sydney. The Centre maintains PEDro, the Physiotherapy Evidence Database.

The Australian Safety and Efficacy Register of New Interventional Procedures - Surgical (ASERNIP-S) provides systematic reviews of the peer-reviewed literature, the establishment and facilitation of clinical audits or trials, the identification of emerging technologies by horizon scanning, and the production of clinical practice guidelines. Their aim is to improve the quality of health care through the wide dissemination of evidence-based research to surgeons, health care providers and consumers, both nationally and internationally.

The Joanna Briggs Institute is an initiative of the Royal Adelaide Hospital and the University of Adelaide, recognising the need for a collaborative approach to the evaluation of evidence derived from a diverse range of sources, including experience, expertise and all forms of rigorous research and the translation, transfer and utilisation of the "best available" evidence into health care practice.

The New Zealand Guidelines Group website provides a comprehensive library of medical guidelines, protocols and pathways developed in New Zealand. The site also links to news, events and information on activities in evidence-based practice in New Zealand and internationally. 

Australia's Clinical Practice Guidelines Portal aims to provide access to high quality clinical guidelines and a Guidelines in Development register.

Follow the links in the list below to information on reviews of evidence and organisations working to promote the use of evidence in health care. For information on clinical trials, randomised controlled trials, and evidence-based medicine follow the links to the specific HealthInsite topic pages below.

To search HealthInsite for systematic reviews of the evidence for specific treatments, look for topic pages covering the specific condition or for specific Systematic Reviews topic pages look under 'S' in the A-Z Health Topics.  

Updated March 2011