Richtlijnen vormen een belangrijke bron voor zorgprofessionals om evidence-based te kunnen handelen. Richtlijnen zijn veelal gebaseerd op systematic reviews, waarbij alle beschikbare wetenschappelijke literatuur over een bepaald onderwerp systematisch beoordeeld wordt op de kwaliteit van de onderzoeken. Dit artikel gaat over wat er aan bod komt bij een systematic review.
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Although systematic reviews are considered as central components in evidence-based practice, they currently face an important challenge to keep up with the exponential publication rate of clinical trials. After initial publication, only a minority of the systematic reviews are updated, and it often takes multiple years before these results become accessible. Consequently, many systematic reviews are not up to date, thereby increasing the time-gap between research findings and clinical practice. A potential solution is offered by a living systematic reviews approach. These types of studies are characterized by a workflow of continuous updates which decreases the time it takes to disseminate new findings. Although living systematic reviews are specifically designed to continuously synthesize new evidence in rapidly emerging topics, they have also considerable potential in slower developing domains, such as rehabilitation science. In this commentary, we outline the rationale and required steps to transition a regular systematic review into a living systematic review. We also propose a workflow that is designed for rehabilitation science.
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Abstract: Teledentistry offers possibilities for improving efficiency and quality of care and supporting cost-effective healthcare systems. This umbrella review aims to synthesize existing systematic reviews on teledentistry and provide a summary of evidence of its clinical- and cost-effectiveness. A comprehensive search strategy involving various teledentistry-related terms, across seven databases, was conducted. Articles published until 24 April 2023 were considered. Two researchers independently reviewed titles, abstracts and full-text articles. The quality of the included reviews was critically appraised with the AMSTAR-2 checklist. Out of 749 studies identified, 10 were included in this umbrella review. Two reviews focusing on oral-health outcomes revealed that, despite positive findings, there is not yet enough evidence for the long-term clinical effectiveness of teledentistry. Ten reviews reported on economic evaluations or costs, indicating that teledentistry is cost-saving. However, these conclusions were based on assumptions due to insufficient evidence on cost-effectiveness. The main limitation of our umbrella review was the critically low quality of the included reviews according to AMSTAR-2 criteria, with many of these reviews basing their conclusions on low-quality studies. This highlights the need for high-quality experimental studies (e.g., RCTs, factorial designs, stepped-wedge designs, SMARTs and MRTs) to assess teledentistry’s clinical- and cost-effectiveness.
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This project addresses the fundamental societal problem that encryption as a technique is available since decades, but has never been widely adopted, mostly because it is too difficult or cumbersome to use for the public at large. PGP illustrates this point well: it is difficult to set-up and use, mainly because of challenges in cryptographic key management. At the same time, the need for encryption has only been growing over the years, and has become an urgent problem with stringent requirements – for instance for electronic communication between doctors and patients – in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and with systematic mass surveillance activities of internationally operating intelligence agencies. The interdisciplinary project "Encryption for all" addresses this fundamental problem via a combination of cryptographic design and user experience design. On the cryptographic side it develops identity-based and attribute-based encryption on top of the attribute-based infrastructure provided by the existing IRMA-identity platform. Identity-based encryption (IBE) is a scientifically well-established technique, which addresses the key management problem in an elegant manner, but IBE has found limited application so far. In this project it will be developed to a practically usable level, exploiting the existing IRMA platform for identification and retrieval of private keys. Attribute-based encryption (ABE) has not reached the same level of maturity yet as IBE, and will be a topic of further research in this project, since it opens up attractive new applications: like a teacher encrypting for her students only, or a company encrypting for all employees with a certain role in the company. On the user experience design side, efforts will be focused on making these encryption techniques really usable (i.e., easy to use, effective, efficient, error resistant) for everyone (e.g., also for people with disabilities or limited digital skills). To do so, an iterative, human-centred and inclusive design approach will be adopted. On a fundamental level, scientific questions will be addressed, such as how to promote the use of security and privacy-enhancing technologies through design, and whether and how usability and accessibility affect the acceptance and use of encryption tools. Here, theories of nudging and boosting and the unified theory of technology acceptance and use (known as UTAUT) will serve as a theoretical basis. On a more applied level, standards like ISO 9241-11 on usability and ISO 9241-220 on the human-centred design process will serve as a guideline. Amongst others, interface designs will be developed and focus groups, participatory design sessions, expert reviews and usability evaluations with potential users of various ages and backgrounds will be conducted, in a user experience and observation laboratory available at HAN University of Applied Sciences. In addition to meeting usability goals, ensuring that the developed encryption techniques also meet national and international accessibility standards will be a particular point of focus. With respect to usability and accessibility, the project will build on the (limited) usability design experiences with the mobile IRMA application.
Diëtisten en mondhygiënisten hebben de HAN en de HU benaderd met de vraag hen te helpen bij het tijdig signaleren van problemen op het raakvlak mondgezondheid en voeding. Veel thuiswonende ouderen ervaren problemen met mondgezondheid en voedingsinname. Er is samenhang tussen beide problemen; bijv. pijn bij het kauwen kan leiden tot slechte voedingsinname. Tijdige signalering en aanpak van problemen t.a.v. voeding of mondgezondheid dragen bij aan betere kwaliteit van leven van ouderen en aan betere zorg. Mondhygiënisten en diëtisten zijn zich bewust van de samenhang tussen voeding en mondgezondheid, maar herkennen onvoldoende wanneer doorverwijzing naar de andere discipline wenselijk is en welke informatie deze discipline dan nodig heeft. In een consortium van praktijken van mondhygiënisten en diëtisten en betreffende beroepsverenigingen wordt daarom onderzocht welke vragen mondhygiënisten kunnen stellen aan patiënten om risico’s en/of problemen op het terrein van voedingsinname in kaart te brengen en welke vragen diëtisten kunnen stellen aan patiënten om risico’s en/of problemen met mondgezondheid te signaleren. Hiertoe worden risicofactoren voor slechte mondgezondheid in relatie tot voeding en vice versa in kaart gebracht (wp1), worden vragenlijsten ontwikkeld die de mondhygiënist en de diëtist kunnen toepassen om risico’s te identificeren (wp2), wordt dezelfde vragenlijst landelijk uitgezet om inzicht te krijgen in de prevalentie van risicofactoren op het kruispunt van voedingsproblemen en mondgezondheid (wp3) en wordt middels focusgroepen en interviews onderzocht hoe optimale samenwerking er uit ziet tussen mondhygiënisten en diëtisten en tussen mondhygiënisten/diëtisten en andere zorgprofessionals en hoe optimale zorg rond voeding en mondzorg er volgens ouderen uit zou moeten zien (wp4). Het project sluit af met een symposium (wp5). In dit onderzoek combineren HAN en HU complementaire disciplines: Voeding & Diëtetiek (HAN) en Mondzorgkunde (HU). Resultaten worden gedissemineerd via kanalen zoals het Netwerk Voeding en Mondgezondheid, de beroepsverenigingen van mondhygiënisten en diëtisten en de Stuurgroep Ondervoeding.
