The Rocky Mountain Evidence-Based Health Care Workshop (EBHC) has been presented each August since 1999. In addition to its stated objectives of improving practice and outcomes of care by teaching individual participants the basics of evidence-based practice, the workshop also strives to disseminate information by working with health care systems and diverse professional audiences to facilitate adoption of evidence-based practice on a system-wide basis (translational research). This proposal seeks support in each year for six groups of clinicians including two coming from health care systems or professional organizations. Additional funding sources for other non-clinical constituencies will be sought (journalists and consumer advocates). Milbank Memorial Fund is committed to continued support in sending policy-makers to the workshop. The workshop format is structured around plenary sessions, small group sessions and individual study time. Small group topics are tailored to the interests of the participants to optimize the opportunities to put new skills into immediate practice. The five-day workshop comprised of 72 participants uses adult learning modalities and a problem-based format, with a 3-to-1 participant-to-tutor ratio. Principal tutors are nationally and internationally recognized EBHC experts with long associations with McMaster University, the Cochrane Collaboration, and AHRQ Evidence-based Practice Centers. The tutors who have, in the past, committed to this workshop include: Lisa Bero, Kay Dickersin, Robert Fletcher, Suzanne Fletcher, Curt Furberg, Martha Gerrity, Gord Guyatt, Alex Jadad, Andy Oxman, Drummond Rennie, Scott Richardson, and Peter Tugwell. Local faculty and a contingent librarians comprise the balance of the faculty. Funding for the 2007, 2008 and 2009 workshops will provide the opportunity to address the barriers of putting EBHC knowledge into daily practice. The workshop directors remain committed to further development and maintenance of the web-based, post workshop support activities and extensive dissemination efforts that bring the principal lessons and resources of evidence-based care to diverse audiences beyond the workshop. ? ? ? ?
