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Tuesday 20 October will be the inaugural World Evidence-based Healthcare Day

Today NICE and six other global leaders in evidence-based healthcare, who are major organisations of World Evidence-based Healthcare, are launching a worldwide initiative to create awareness of the need for better evidence to inform healthcare policy, practice and decision making in order to improve health outcomes globally.

The inaugural World Evidence-based Healthcare (EBHC) Day will be held on 20 October 2020 and spotlights the global impact of EBHC on health research, policy, practice and patient outcomes.

EBHC is a worldwide movement with hundreds of organisations and tens of thousands of individuals working tirelessly towards improving the science and practice of EBHC for the same aim: to improve health outcomes.

Professor Gillian Leng, chief executive at NICE, said: “NICE plays a vital role to produce evidence-based guidelines and resources that help commissioners and frontline practitioners, patients and carers, make better informed decisions about health and social care policy and practice. We are therefore proud to support EBHC day.

“We must share best practice for using evidence to improve health outcomes across the globe, now more than ever. In light of the challenges we are all currently dealing with due to Covid-19, NICE is playing an active role in the WHO's Evidence Collaborative for COVID-19 which is reviewing a high volume of ongoing evidence to share with partners across this global network.”

The need and demand for EBHC continues to grow rapidly due to increased availability of digital information, better informed patients, introduction of new technologies, increased healthcare costs, complex adaptive health systems and ageing populations

Bianca Pilla, World EBHC Day committee chair, said: “World EBHC day is an opportunity for collaboration in the ever-evolving sphere of global health and will provide a platform to discuss and debate the challenges and innovations in evidence-informed approaches to improving health outcomes globally.

“As a global evidence community, we are working together to close this gap and overcome barriers to advance the use of reliable research evidence to address some of the world’s most serious health challenges.”

In 2020, the importance of having the ability to utilise the best available evidence has been highlighted by the rapid implementation of effective hand washing and the correct use of PPE to help fight the spread of COVID-19.

Around the world scientists are working together to develop vaccines, researchers have identified and shared hundreds of viral genome sequences, more than 200 clinical trials have been launched, and international evidence synthesis organisations are rapidly synthesising the emerging evidence to assist policymakers in making informed decisions.

Prof Zoe Jordan, executive director at JBI – the international research organisation based in the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, said: “Globally, healthcare environments are changing rapidly which leads to a need for guidance to practice high-quality, effective care.

“Now, more than ever, we see the value, the necessity, of having access to the best available research evidence. Not only for what is effective, but what is feasible or appropriate in different clinical or geographical settings.”