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Evidence Services

Overview

The Center for Knowledge Management (CKM) offers evidence consultation services to advance clinical decision making, evidence-based practice, and the research enterprise at VUMC. These services are delivered in different formats tailored to specific information needs and budget. Free services for the VUMC community include developing searches and eStar Message Basket requests. For a complete fee schedule, click here.

Highly-skilled CKM information scientists contribute expertise in searching the biomedical literature and biochemical, genetic, structural and bioinformatics resources; identifying the most authoritative sources; synthesizing and filtering evidence; evaluating study design; and identifying biases in the literature. CKM information scientists are well-versed in a wide array of databases and grey literature resources, including specialized domain-specific, unpublished, and non-commercial resources, which enable them to locate data not readily accessible.  

Filtered packets prepared by CKM offer concise, objective summaries of the evidence, citations, and expert search strategies for consulted sources. The resulting information products and evidence packets are stored and maintained in web-based repositories available to the VUMC community.

Applying expert skills in the application of levels and grading from evidence hierarchies, as well as the evaluation of study methodologies and sources of bias, CKM staff cite and synthesize information from resources such as clinical trials; systematic reviews and meta-analyses; documents from federal, international, and non-governmental organizations; and other published and grey literature resources, biochemical resources, databases and algorithms into succinct recaps of relevant results and outcomes. CKM additionally extends evidence provision to further the institution’s precision medicine initiatives through the research and analysis of how various mutations and alleles affect protein structure and function.

 

Types of Evidence Services Offered:

 

  • Clinical: Rapid evidence summaries that consider patient- or population-specific factors to support effective clinical decision-making and evidence-based practice in inpatient, critical care, and outpatient settings. Click here for more information on our eStar Evidence Consultation Message Basket service, which is provided free of charge to VUMC providers for assistance with complex, patient-specific clinical questions. For other evidence requests, please refer to the applicable fee schedule.

  • Research: Research evidence consult services include training, grant assistance, database searching and evidence filtering of biochemical, genetic, protein, and structural information. Individual and group consultations are available with experienced Center for Knowledge Management staff. Information scientists can also provide assistance with comprehensive evidence reviews to researchers developing institutional review board (IRB) protocols and to IRB protocol analysts.