Dr. David Tovey To Be The Cochrane Library's First Editor-in-Chief

Main Category: Medical Students / Training
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 19 Oct 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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The Cochrane Collaboration, the internationally respected health care research not-for-profit organisation, today announced the appointment of its first Editor-in-Chief. Expected to take up post in the new year, Dr. David Tovey will take up the reins at the head of The Cochrane Library at an exciting time for Cochrane and for the journal, which this year received its first impact factor. At 4.654, this places The Cochrane Library in 14th place in the mainstream category "Medicine, General and Internal".

David joins The Cochrane Collaboration from his current role as Editorial Director of the BMJ Group's "Knowledge" division, responsible for BMJ Clinical Evidence and its sister product BestTreatments.

Looking forward to his new role, David said "The Cochrane Collaboration has been enormously influential in changing health care practice through systematically reviewing the evidence for treatment interventions. The Cochrane Library is a key resource in bringing this evidence to the attention of practitioners, policy makers and patients. I look forward to working with Cochrane's many supporters to ensure that the Library remains relevant to its users, that its quality and coverage continue to grow, and that it remains at the core of healthcare decision-making."

David graduated from Bristol University in 1983. After completing vocational GP training, he was senior partner in a large, inner city practice in South London, and a postgraduate CPD tutor until 2003, when he joined the BMJ Group. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Professor Adrian Grant, Co-Chair of The Cochrane Collaboration, stated that "this is a key appointment for the Collaboration. We were extremely fortunate to have an exceptionally strong group of candidates for the post and I am confident that David Tovey is the right person for this role and for the Collaboration".

1. The Cochrane Library contains high quality health care information, including Systematic Reviews from The Cochrane Collaboration. These Reviews bring together research on the effects of health care and are considered the gold standard for determining the relative effectiveness of different interventions. The Cochrane Collaboration is a UK registered international charity and the world's leading producer of systematic Reviews. It has been demonstrated that Cochrane Systematic Reviews are of comparable or better quality and are updated more often than the Reviews published in print journalsª.

2. The Cochrane Library can be accessed at www.thecochranelibrary.com. Guest users may access abstracts for all Reviews in the database, and members of the media may request full access to the contents of the Library.

A number of countries have national provisions by which some or all of their residents are able to access The Cochrane Library for free. These include:

Australia - www.nicsl.com.au/Cochrane
England - www.library.nhs.uk
Finland - www.terveysportti.fi
India - http://www.icmr.nic.in/
Ireland - www.thecochranelibrary.com
Latin & Central America & Caribbean - cochrane.bireme.br
New Zealand - www.moh.govt.nz/cochranelibrary or www.nzgg.org.nz/ or www.cochrane.org.nz
Northern Ireland - www.thecochranelibrary.com
Norway - www.cochrane.no
Poland - www.aotm.gov.pl
Scotland - http://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk
South Africa - www.sahealthinfo.org/evidence/databases.htm
Sweden - www.sbu.se
Wales - www.thecochranelibrary.com
The Canadian Province of New Brunswick - www.gnb.ca/0003
The Canadian Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon - www.thecochranelibrary.com
The Canadian Province of Saskatchewan - www.thecochranelibrary.com
The Canadian Province of Nova Scotia - www.library.dal.ca/kellogg/ahkp/cochrane.htm
The US State of Wyoming - wyld.state.wy.us/dbloginform.html

3. The Cochrane Library is available with free one-click access to all residents of countries in the World Bank's list of low-income economies (countries with a gross national income (GNI) per capita of less that $1000). Access to The Cochrane Library for low-income countries is via Wiley-Blackwell IP recognition, a system which recognises the country a user is in.

There are also several programmes, such as the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) and the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) that provide access in developing countries. To find out whether your country is included in any of these programmes/provisions, or to learn how to get access if you don't already have it, please visit: www.thecochranelibrary.com.

4. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews received its first Impact Factor ever in 2007 and has an IF of 4.654, giving it a ranking of 14 out of 100 in the ISI category Medicine, General & Internal. Impact Factors are a measure of the influence attained by scientific journals, published by Thomson ISI® 2007 Journal Citation Reports.

5. The Cochrane Library is published by Wiley-Blackwell. Wiley-Blackwell was formed in February 2007 as a result of the acquisition of Blackwell Publishing Ltd. by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and its merger with Wiley's Scientific, Technical, and Medical business. Together, the companies have created a global publishing business with deep strength in every major academic and professional field. Wiley-Blackwell publishes approximately 1,400 scholarly peer-reviewed journals and an extensive collection of books with global appeal. For more information on Wiley-Blackwell, please visit www.blackwellpublishing.com or interscience.wiley.com.

a - Jadad AR, Cook DJ, Jones A, Klassen TP, Tugwell P, Moher M, et al. Methodology and reports of systematic Reviews and meta-analysies: a comparison of Cochrane Reviews with articles published in paper-based journal.

Source
Jennifer Beal
Wiley-Blackwell www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell

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