The Cochrane Collaboration

The symbol for the Cochrane Reviews (above) is the two Cs for Cochrane Collaboration but the graph in the middle represents an early review on the benefits of giving steroids to mothers who are delivering pre-term. This review changed clinical practice and saved babies lives. A Dr. Scherer of the Cochrane Center gave an excellent history and overview of the CC. Our friend, Claire, from APLIC, was a co-presentor as she does searches for Cochrane Reviews and will be a wonderful resource when Allison begins helping Dalia with the reviews she hopes to do. Fortunately for us, The Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews of Interventions as well as training videos are available online. In-person training is available twice a year through the US Cochrane Center if we need it. Review Manager is their online software and template for preparing reviews. ARCHIE is an online directory of collaborators and a file sharing site--all available on the Cochrane site.

The United States Government has published Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews. If we don't have it we should probably order it. I'm sure Dalia is very familiar with all of this, and Allison, the online materials are all available when you need to start checking them out. Knowing Claire was just an email away was the best news.