A Statement from Suzanne McGurn, CADTH President and CEO, on World Evidence-Based Healthcare Day

Today CADTH is proud to celebrate the first-ever World Evidence-Based Healthcare (EBHC) Day, a global initiative to highlight the critical role of evidence in improving health outcomes, enhancing clinical care, and informing policy.

Organizations from around the world are using this day to spotlight how the global evidence community is collaborating to advance the use of reliable evidence to address some of the world’s most serious health challenges.

To mark World EBHC Day, I’m moderating a special panel discussion on How COVID-19 Is Changing the Evidence Landscape. I’m looking forward to a candid exchange with our experts about decision-making, trade-offs, and tolerating uncertainty in the context of a rapidly changing evidence environment. If you haven’t registered yet, there is still time to sign up.

Making Evidence-Informed Decisions in a COVID World

It is fitting that in my first message as CEO I have the chance to reflect on CADTH’s role in advancing EBHC during these extraordinary circumstances. The pandemic has changed the nature of decision-making in some important ways. Some of our insights from the past several months include:

• The need for critically appraised evidence has never been greater. The flood of new information can overwhelm decision-makers. CADTH’s efforts to systematically answer important questions about testing, screening, treating, and managing COVID-19 can help, while acknowledging, in some circumstances, the available evidence may be preliminary or weak.
• Timeliness is essential. Health systems and health care professionals are working under intense pressure. To support their pressing needs, we have adapted our approaches to identifying and synthesizing evidence, and we are monitoring the evidence in key areas to incorporate relevant new findings as they are published. Examples of living reviews include our Technology Review of remdesivir for COVID-19 and Horizon Scan on optimizing N95 respirator masks during supply shortages.
• Early signals are invaluable. Decision-makers need a window into the health technology pipeline that could affect diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment in the future. Our horizon scans provide early looks at the availability, cost, current practice, and available evidence for potentially high-impact technologies.
• We can leverage our competencies and networks. We’re using our diverse networks to identify and share evidence across the country and internationally quickly and efficiently. And we’re harnessing our core competencies and skills in critical analysis, economic analysis, implementation support, real-world evidence, and other areas to meet the immediate needs during the pandemic while looking ahead to post-COVID challenges and opportunities. 

Find Out More

To learn more about World EBHC Day, I encourage you to follow #WorldEBHCDay for posts from organizations and individuals around the world who are working tirelessly to improve the science and practice of EBHC during these especially challenging times.

And to access our evidence related to COVID-19, please visit our dedicated web portal at covid.cadth.ca.