Knowledge and Evaluation Research Unit - Victor M. Montori

Knowledge Synthesis

Knowledge synthesis activities of the KER unit include:

• Conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses to summarize the best available evidence about a particular topic
• Transforming of evidence into clinical recommendations and practice guidelines

Systematic reviews are protocol-driven research projects that include:

• A thorough search for the best available research evidence
• Explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Reproducible judgments about eligibility and quality
• Systematic data collection
• Quantitative and qualitative summaries that relate conclusions to the available data; the quantitative summaries are performed using statistical pooling procedures and called “meta-analyses”

KER unit investigators are members of the GRADE Working Group and assist professional organizations in knowledge synthesis activities utilizing the state-of- the-art GRADE framework that separates the quality of evidence from the strength of recommendations and incorporates patients' values, preferences and context in the process.

Previous and future collaborators

• American Association of Blood Banks
• The Endocrine Society
• Society for Vascular Surgery
• American Association of Sleep Medicine
• The American Urological Association
• National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute

Methodology research

KER unit investigators conduct studies aimed at improving the quality of clinical research, methodology, and the conduct of systematic reviews, meta-analyses and guidelines development.

Examples

The KER investigators, along with other collaborators, demonstrated the magnitude of bias introduced by stopping trials early for benefit and the impact of bias associated with authors' financial conflicts of interest.

Reviews

Stopping randomized trials early for benefit and estimation of treatment effects: systematic review and meta-regression analysis

The effect of plasma transfusion on morbidity and mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Association between industry affiliation and position on cardiovascular risk with rosiglitazone: cross sectional systematic review