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(The Saudi Gazette), 21 April
2008 - The
Riyadh-based King Fahd Medical City (KFMC) will organize the 4th Saudi
Annual Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) Conference and Workshop in Riyadh from
April 19-22, 2008.
Held in collaboration with the
National Gulf Center for Evidence-Based Medicine (NGCEBM), the conference
and the workshop will be held under the title of “Applying Evidence,
Present and Future.”
Dr. Haya Al-Fozan ,consultant at
the in-vitro fertilization unit of King Abdulaziz Medical City and NGCEBM
director, said this conference is the fourth of its kind held in Saudi
Arabia.
NGCEBM held its first conference
ever at King Abdulaziz Medical City in Riyadh in 2006. That was about “Revival
of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM).”
The second conference, held at
King Abdulaziz Medical City in Ahsa, focused on challenges facing EBM. The
third EBM conference was held in Jeddah in collaboration with King Abdulaziz
Medical City in 2007.
Fozan said the fourth conference
will be supplemented with four workshops, spread over three days of
deliberations, to discuss topics pertaining to EBM, training cadres and the
basics of health care based on evidence and comprehensive analysis of the
evidence. Evidence-based medicine emerged in the 1990s as a way to improve
and evaluate patient care.
It involves combining the best
research evidence with the patient’s values to make decisions about medical
care.
Looking at all available medical
studies and literature that pertain to an individual patient or a group of
patients helps doctors properly diagnose illnesses, choose the best testing
plan, and select the best treatments and methods of disease prevention.
Using evidence-based medicine
techniques for large groups of patients with the same illness, doctors can
develop practice guidelines for evaluation and treatment of particular
conditions.
In addition to improving
treatment, such guidelines can help individual physicians and institutions
measure their performance and identify areas for further study and
improvement, according to the journal of the American Medical Association
(JAMA).
NGCEBM is officially recognized
by the GCC Ministers of Health as an EBM referral center for Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf Region. A decree was issued containing this recognition during
the 57th conference held in Geneva on May 19, 2004 (decree 6 item 3).
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