Activity

Standards for Systematic Reviews of Clinical Effectiveness Research

Type:

Consensus Study

Topic(s):

Biomedical and Health Research, Public Health, Quality and Patient Safety

Board(s):

Board on Health Care Services

Activity Description

The committee will conduct a study to recommend methodologic standards for systematic reviews of clinical effectiveness research on health and health care. The standards should ensure that that the reviews are objective, transparent, scientifically valid, and require a common language for characterizing the strength of the evidence. Decision makers should be able to rely on systematic reviews of clinical effectiveness to know what is known and not known and to describe the extent to which the evidence is applicable to clinical practice and particular patients. In this context, the committee will

(1) Assess whether, if widely adopted, any existing set of standards would assure that systematic reviews of clinical effectiveness research are objective, transparent, and scientifically valid.

(2) Endorse an existing set of standards for developing and reporting systematic reviews of clinical effectiveness research. If the committee judges current standards to be inadequate, it will develop a new set of standards.

Please see the companion study on Standards for Developing Trustworthy Clinical Practice Guidelines.