Overview

The Knowledge and Encounter Research (KER) Unit is a laboratory focused on translating the best available research evidence into clinical practice through evidence synthesis and through enhancements in the patient-clinician encounter.

Healthcare delivery is often inefficient--patients can leave encounters after making decisions on which they do not intend to act, or to which they fail to adhere. Lack of action and adherence to effective interventions suggests that these choices did not result from optimal decision-making processes.

We hypothesize that we can enhance decisional quality by improving both the way we manage clinical encounters and the process by which relevant evidence is made available to clinicians. Decisional quality describes the characteristics of the decision-making process that lead to choices consistent with the best available evidence and the values and preferences of the informed patient, leading to greater patient action and adherence. We hypothesize that high quality decisions will lead to better patient outcomes.

Our Research

The KER Unit is multidisciplinary team focused on:

• Knowledge generation, appraisal and synthesis: development of new methods, support for investigators, and conduct of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
• Encounter research: development of new methods, support for investigators, and conduct and dissemination of research on health care delivery, the clinical encounter, and clinical decision-making.
• Education: training of clinicians in communicating evidence and uncertainty, facilitating patient participation in decision making, and using decision tools.