Evidence-based medicine advocates to support clinical decision-making with the best evidence, which is useful to objectively evaluate the clinical efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine and optimize clinical diagnosis and treatment. However, significant individualized characteristics identified from syndrome differentiation and treatment are incompatible with evidence-based clinical decision-making, which highlights population-level evidence, to some extent. In recent years, a number of new methods and technologies have been introduced into individualized clinical efficacy evaluation research of traditional Chinese medicine to assist managing and processing complex and multivariate information. These methods and technologies share similarities with evidence-based medicine, and are expected to link the clinical practice of traditional Chinese medicine with evidence-based clinical decision-making. They will guide the development of evidence-based clinical decision-making in traditional Chinese medicine.
In order to mediate the contradiction between the high quantity and low quality of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinical research, to avoid blind research and waste of resources, and to promote the benign development of TCM clinical research, we proposed carrying out health research priority setting on the TCM clinical research. This paper defined the main content of TCM clinical research and briefly introduced the research status of priority setting methods. We described a five-step process of the TCM priority setting research: setting the research scope and plan, establishing the working group, mapping the research field, identifying priority research areas, reporting, evaluating and updating the research. It is expected that this area will receive the attention of relevant researchers, policy makers and research funders.
The shortage of health workforce in rural and remote areas has been commonly concerned by every country around the word. It is one of world health issues, challenging the aspirations of achieving equity. In this regard, WHO developed the Global Policy Recommendations to improve the accessibility of the health workforce in rural and remote areas through improved retention. This article focuses on the key steps of the policy guideline developed from evidence-based medicine methodology and from angle of guideline development, mainly about background, issues, evidence retrieval and selection, quality grading of evidence, and the forming of recommendation plan, in order to further explore how to correctly understand, obtain, evaluate and apply currently available research evidence, and how to use the GRADE system to make scientific and feasible recommendations in the decision-making process, emphasizing the importance of evidence and the GRADE system in the evidence-based health decision-making.
Objective To provide scientific evidence for the establishment of medical specialist system in China by analyzing the current situation and problems, putting forward solution thoughts and countermeasures, from the angle of medical education system, residency training program and licensed physician management. Method Principle and method of evidence-based medicine were adopted. Retrospective investigation was conducted to gain information from 1996 to 2002 about enrollment and running form of medical education, current situation of residency and specialist training. Data was then extracted and analyzed for the benefit of corresponding countermeasures. Results By the end of 2001, there were totally 1 640 thousand physicians in China. The enrollment proportion of undergraduate and junior college student steadily increased from 1996 to 2002, while the situation quite the reverse as for medical secondary school. More than 300 thousand have taken part in the licensure exam, among whom less than 15% had university diploma. About 52 000 doctors have already completed the residency training program, and 65 700 are being trained. Standardized system of specialist training and admittance is not available in China. Conclusions It was three main tough problems that mainly account for the poor quality of doctor as a whole in China, which include diversity of educational system, insufficient software and hardware of residency training program, and absence of specialist training system. An allied funded program of "research on medical specialist training and admittance" has been on the way, and research outcomes will be published soon.
The main task of Campbell Collaboration is to collaborate with Cochrane Collaboration so as to produce high quality evidence for the social welfare, education, justice and criminal, international development policy and other social sciences. This article systematically introduces Campbell Collaboration, its origins, achievements and development, with the purpose of allowing more scholars understand evidence-based ideas and methods of social science, providing evidence-based methodology basis for China's social policy.
The outline of the "Healthy China 2030" states that medical institutions should serve as the primary purchasing agents for medicines and medical consumables, and joints purchasing should be encouraged. Since its establishment, the National Healthcare Security Administration has conducted five batches of national centralized procurement of high-value medical consumables, forming a nationwide collaborative framework involving national, provincial (including inter-provincial alliances), and local municipalities (including local municipal alliances). This study explains the current development status of the centralized procurement of medical consumables in representative countries, and explores the role of research evidence, such as health technology assessment (HTA), in the centralized procurement of medical consumables in China. Looking ahead, various forms of research evidence, such as HTA, will contribute to the dynamic adjustment of the catalogue for the collection and procurement of medical consumables, and the construction of a comprehensive evaluation index system for the clinical use of medical consumables, as well as the integration of evidence-based and artificial intelligence technology for the whole life-cycle management of medical consumables, will inject new impetus into the management of collection and procurement and innovation.