The Cochrane Collaboration

Abstract

The Cochrane Collaboration is celebrating 20 years since its formation; what an achievement this has been. The Cochrane Collaboration has produced a series of 24 videos capturing some of the ideas, achievements, and people who have contributed to its growth since 1993; to view the videos, go to http://www.cochrane.org/about-us/history.Over its 20 years of operation, the Collaboration has helped many health care providers, health care professionals, and, importantly, patients make evidence-informed decisions about health care interventions. For many critical care nurses, the results of the systematic reviews have changed practices and eliminated some of the more ritualistic interventions for which there is little or no evidence. As of July 2013, 5602 Cochrane reviews have been published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. The Cochrane Library has recently changed to a Continuous Publication (or “When Ready”) model, which means that when a review is ready for publication it is published on that day, giving users much faster access to evidence.In April 2009, the Cochrane Nursing Care Network (later renamed the Cochrane Nursing Care Field, http://cncf.cochrane.org/) was launched, with the aims of enhancing engagement both locally and internationally and promoting the use of evidence published by nurses in the Cochrane Library. By supporting the Cochrane Collaboration and its work, the Field can increase the provision of evidence for nursing care. When, as clinicians, we are faced with decisions to be made about products, devices, or interventions, it is helpful to search the Cochrane Library to see whether a review has been undertaken and consider the conclusions reached.The topics of interest to critical care nurses are many and varied. These range from hypothermia for neuroprotection in adults after cardiopulmonary resuscitation1 to colloids versus crystalloids for fluid resuscitation in critically ill patients, where the findings add yet more evidence to support the use of crystalloids rather than the more expensive colloids.2 For many reviews, the lack of evidence means that the use of one intervention versus another is inconclusive, and so the recommendation made is for more research to be undertaken. This recommendation is also important as it provides guidance around where efforts should be directed in the quest for better evidence for practice. In 2001, Kathleen Stevens acknowledged the importance of systematic reviews and the role of the Cochrane Collaboration. She wrote, “Major sources of systematic reviews for use by advanced practice nurses in acute and critical care are the Online Journal of Knowledge Synthesis for Nursing, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Cochrane Library.”3(p529)The vision of The Cochrane Collaboration is that health care decision making throughout the world will be informed by high-quality, timely research evidence. It is vitally important in the field of critical care that this continues to occur. In such a rapidly changing world where the quality of care is so important, our patients expect us to use available evidence to give them the best chance of optimal recovery.