On the threshold of the New Year - with gratitude, hope and together
Amidst the hustle and bustle and fatigue of the end of the year, there is an opportunity to pause, reflect on the achievements and step into the next year with gratitude and hope.
Australian expert passed on his experience in evidence-based healthcare to employees of FM MU
Associate Professor Zachary Munn is a leading expert in the field of evidence-based healthcare (EBHC). He has a clinical background in medical imaging and is considered one of the most important experts in systematic review methodology, evidence implementation, and clinical guideline development. Probably the most beneficial part of his role is the opportunity to work practically with clinicians and health services to facilitate the implementation of evidence into practice, particularly in low-resource settings and in countries with high levels of poverty.
As a prestigious speaker and expert, he has been invited to numerous international conferences. One of them was the EVIDENCE IMPLEMENTATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE CONFERENCE in Brno at the end of July, organized by the Czech (Central European) Centre for Evidence-Based Healthcare: the JBI Centre of Excellence under the leadership of Miloslav Klugar and Jitka Klugar. Dr. Munn and Dr. Klugar first met in 2012 at the University of Adelaide and have since collaborated on several projects. Of note are the international COVID-19 Recommendation Map project, the JBI Methodology Group focusing on systematic reviews of effectiveness, umbrella reviews, and, relatively recently, the Methodology Group working on predatory publications and evidence syntheses.
Professor Andrea Pokorná welcomed Prof. Munn at the Faculty of Medicine of MU. He prepared a three-hour educational workshop on "The Past, Present and Future of Evidence Synthesis" for the members of the CEBHC-KT (Czech National Centre for Evidence-Based Healthcare and Knowledge Translation). The interactive workshop moved from the first published systematic review by James Lind, to current trends in evidence synthesis, recognizing more than 15 different types of systematic reviews, to innovations in the field such as automation of this complex process or methodologies for synthesizing individual patient data. A large part of the workshop was also dedicated to the differences between systematic reviews and scoping reviews. Thanks to the possibility of expert consultation, our colleagues were also able to enrich their tasks and methodological topics with the views of one of the most authoritative experts worldwide.
"The consultation was of great benefit to me. I am working on a paper and had the opportunity to consult on questions related to reporting overview results in particular. I also got a great tip on the latest guideline that focuses on this very issue," says Dr. Jana Rozmarínová about the consultation.
Who is Assoc. Prof. Zachary Munn?
Zachary Munn is the Director of JBI's Division of Evidence-Based Research in Healthcare, where he leads the development and coordination of JBI training courses, the development of software tools for systematic reviews and their implementation, as well as the promotion and publication of JBI Collaboration methodologies. He is the chair of the JBI International Scientific Committee and has been involved in the conduct of dozens of systematic reviews, clinical guidelines, evidence implementation, and health services research projects. He is Director of the JBI Adelaide GRADE Centre, Chair of the Guidelines International Network (G-I-N) and a Research Fellow of The National Health and Medical Research Council's NHMRC.
JBI is an evidence-based health care research institute whose vision is that the best available evidence is used to make decisions at the point of care, globally. JBI hosts the JBI Collaboration, a network of 80 centres and groups with thousands of people contributing to this vision around the world. Czech (Central European) Evidence-Based Healthcare Centre of Excellence: the JBI Centre of Excellence was established in the Czech Republic in 2013 and is part of the Czech National Centre for Evidence-Based Healthcare and Knowledge Translation at the Institute of Biostatistics and Analyses of the Faculty of Medicine of the Medical University of Masaryk University, whose director is Dr. Miloslav Klugar.
Zachary Munn has been involved in research grants and projects commissioned by the UK Department for International Development, the Sax Institute, the World Health Organization, the HCF Health and Medical Research Foundation, and the Centre of Research Excellence in Chronic Indigenous Disease Knowledge Translation and Exchange (CREATE), Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), Australian College of Operating Room Nurses, Queensland Health (Allied Health), Australian Heart Foundation, Australian Diabetes Association, Canberra and the Julian Burton Burns Clipsal Trust Community Grant, and others.
