Posted on Sept. 9: Canadian Cochrane Centre appoints new McMaster site co-representatives

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Cochrane_sitereps.jpg” caption=”Janet Pinelli; Amanda Symington “]Clinical nurse specialists Janet Pinelli and Amanda Symington are the new site co-representatives for The Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre (CCN/C) at McMaster University.

In their new positions, they will seek to raise awareness of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that helps individuals make well-informed decisions about health care.

“We would like to focus on advanced clinical practitioners from the allied health professions as our target group, in order to raise their awareness of The Cochrane Collaboration and the benefits for all health care professionals,” says Pinelli.

Symington adds: “As advanced practitioners who have completed two systematic reviews, we can provide advice and support to individuals who are interested in participating in The Cochrane Collaboration as reviewers. We believe that The Cochrane Collaboration is a key resource in the facilitation of evidence-based practice.”

Pinelli and Symington will identify and support individuals in the Hamilton region who are interested in being involved in The Cochrane Collaboration. Their responsibilities include fostering the promotion, appreciation, dissemination and application of systematic reviews in the Hamilton region. They also will participate on the advisory board of The Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre. Site related activities include the planning, implementation and evaluation of workshops.

The neonatal practitioners at the McMaster University Medical Centre have been involved with The Cochrane Collaboration as reviewers since they co-wrote their first Cochrane review for the Neonatal Review Group in 1997.

They currently have two Cochrane reviews published in The Cochrane Library: one on developmental care for promoting development and preventing morbidity in preterm infants, and another on non-nutritive sucking for promoting physiologic stability and nutrition in preterm infants. The Cochrane Library is a collection of electronic healthcare databases that is produced by The Cochrane Collaboration and is widely regarded as the world's most comprehensive source for evidence-based health care. McMaster faculty, staff and students can access the online version of The Cochrane Library free of charge at www.cochranelibrary.com/enter/ (on campus) or through the Health Sciences Library (off campus).

In addition to her clinical work, Pinelli is a professor with the School of Nursing and the Department of Pediatrics, and a graduate faculty member with the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster. Her areas of interest include advanced practice neonatal nursing, stress and coping of parents of ill newborns, breastfeeding of term and preterm infants, predictors of outcomes of low birth weight infants and research methodology and statistical analyses.

Symington is an assistant clinical professor with the School of Nursing and the School of Graduate Studies with the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster. Her interests include systematic reviews of neonatal nursing practice and the education of nurses in advanced practice positions.

The Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre, which prepares, maintains and promotes the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions, has network sites located at each of the 16 academic health sciences centres across Canada. Each site has one or two representatives who work to support the CCN/C's vision and mission in their respective regions or provinces.

The Canadian Cochrane Centre has been located at McMaster University since August 1993 in the Health Information Research Unit (HIRU) of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Faculty of Health Sciences.

The Canadian Cochrane Centre is hosting the third Canadian Cochrane Symposium Nov. 21-22. The national conference of The Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre, on “Advancing the Knowledge Translation of Systematic Reviews”, will focus on turning healthcare research into healthcare policy and practice.

In addition to hosting the symposium, the CCN/C will be celebrating its tenth anniversary. To kick off anniversary celebrations, there will be a free public lecture by Muir Gray, director of the UK National Electronic Library for Health, at McMaster on Thursday, Nov. 20. Admission is free to the event which starts at 5 p.m. in McMaster University Health Sciences Centre, Room 1A1.

The following night, a tenth anniversary celebration will be held at the Sheraton Hamilton Hotel.

For more information about the new site reps, the Symposium or other upcoming events, visit www.cochrane.mcmaster.ca/.

Photo caption: Janet Pinelli and Amanda Symington