Description
Improving evidence-supported decision-making remains
a central theme of health care policy in the UK, yet the means
to do this are not well established. We report an initial
evaluation of a timely, “on-demand” service to help commissioners
of health care access, appraise and interpret reviews of research
in the West Midlands. The evaluation of health authorities’
staff in relation to seventeen requests for help to access
and interpret research evidence confirmed that the Aggressive
Research Intelligence Facility (ARIF) service was valued and
indicated areas for improvement. The results also provided
insights into future evaluation and signalled important factors
limiting the likelihood that ARIF-type services could ever
result in commissioning decisions that are universally evidence-based.
