Medical researchers from Ottawa and the UK have reportedly issued a global call to their colleagues to open access to new studies that have undergone 'systematic reviews', which are wide-ranging summaries of all the existing research on a given health topic. The move is expected to avoid wasting time, talent and money.
Such reviews - seen to be essential to doctors and other healthcare experts - may sum up all the studies of a new drug, or examine the issue of hospital-crowding, or analyse how to vaccinate in a flu pandemic. It has been observed that these reviews are sometimes needlessly conducted repeatedly because research teams are often not informed of others working in similar fields.
Dr. David Moher, of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the University of Ottawa, is part of a group studying how to improve diabetic care in Canada. When his research team went looking for systematic reviews on the topic, they found 13 of them summarising the same issue. As a result, Dr. Moher and colleagues in the UK have set up a website where scientists can announce their studies in the earliest stages, at no cost, to prevent such waste. The new open access website will begin operating shortly out of the University of York.
According to Dr. Moher, systematic reviews are seen to be the most influential kind of health research study. It is therefore very important that these reviews are conducted to the highest standards. As per the latest estimate, 11 systematic reviews are being published 'everyday' in medical journals, he has pointed out.
Further, Dr. Moher says, Canada's funding agency for medical studies - Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR - spends up to $100,000 on each systematic review, while the US government spends up to $250,000 each. In addition to the public money being spent, the medical industry also heavily invests money.
Ultimately, Dr. Moher says, duplication only ties up bright investigators who could be doing useful work somewhere else.
Other partners in the project include the WHO, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the UK Cochrane Centre.
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