HLTH 718 Evidence Based Management Practices in Healthcare: 2. Frame your search

What type of information are you focusing on?

• management issues: HR, budget,facilities,vendors
• quality or audit procedures/policies
• population statistics
• general medical health literature
• In depth clinical research: Systematic reviews, meta analysis
• Clinical research: Random Controlled Trials (RCT) , cohort study, etc.? 

• Frame (think out) your research question using the PICO method?

• PICO Example out of the Cochrane database

• PICO was first developed in the medical field for clinical researchers and has been adopted by other subject disciplines.

• PICO stands for  (Population; Intervention; Comparison; Outcome)

• PATIENT/PROBLEM - What are the characteristics of the patient or population or problem that you are focusing on?

• INTERVENTION - What do you want to do with this patient or population or problem?

• COMPARISON - Are there alternatives to consider? This could be an optional step.

• OUTCOME - What are you trying to accomplish, measure, improve or affect?

• If this is a clinical issue: Are you looking for therapy (treatment), Diagnosis, Harm/Etiology (identify causes for disease) , Prognosis (estimate patient's clinical course), Prevention?

QUESTION: Does the journal article provide what you seek using the PICO format.

See Cochrane Database journal article example.