We aim to improve healthcare by better understanding the causes of, and solutions to, gaps between research evidence and its application in practice.
To achieve this, we:
- Undertake research that more closely aligns evidence and patient care.
- Support and extend collaborations between clinicians and health researchers to achieve higher value care.
- Enable patients and families to make evidence-informed health decisions that are congruent with their values and preferences.
- Lead and facilitate the teaching and learning of evidence-based practice.
- Develop young researchers for research programs in sustainable health care.
To deliver these aims, we will both synthesise and generate new evidence on four neglected problems in healthcare.
- Antibiotic resistance: which currently leads to over 30,000 avoidable deaths per year in both Europe and the USA, threatening elective surgery, and a resurgence of the bacterial diseases of the 19th century.
- Overdiagnosis: which has led to massive increase in the apparent prevalence of many diseases through definition change and overdetection, causing harm and rising healthcare costs.
- Neglected non-pharmaceutical treatments: which are often as effective and as safe, or safer than their pharmaceutical cousins, but are poorly described, poorly “marketed”, and therefore, little used.
- Waste in Medical Research: is estimated to cost > $100 billion per year from avoidable design flaws, non-publication and poor reporting, resulting in >85% avoidable waste.