Health care for kids: where's the evidence?

The Children's Hospital at Westmead, with the support of Nutricia, has launched a unique and important resource for paediatricians and health care workers. The establishment of the Centre for Evidence Based Paediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition will help to ensure Australian kids receive optimal health care in these disciplines.

"The Centre is the first of its kind in Australia. It is an important development because it will enable us to identify, through paediatricians and dieticians, conditions for which treatment is controversial or uncertain. We will then search and evaluate the literature to determine whether treatments studied should be recommended or whether further research is necessary. For some conditions the Centre may produce clinical guidelines to help practicing paediatricians. Teaching evidence based paediatrics will also be a major focus of the Centre," said Prof Elizabeth Elliot (A/Prof, Deparment of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Sydney and Consultant Paediatrician, The Children's Hospital at Westmead).

Establishment of the Centre has been made possible through generous funding from Nutricia Australia. Nutricia is an international company that produces a unique range of products ranging from infant formula to nutrition for special medical problems such as food allergy, reflux, cancer, renal disease, underweight, cystic fibrosis and phenylketonuria.

The Centre, which will employ a paediatric gastroenterologist, librarian and administrator, will:

• answer health care questions relating to gastrointestinal health and nutrition for children using the best available information from the medical literature
• establish databases of research information and disseminate this to appropriate health care workers
• identify important areas for further research
• provide assistance in study design and searching techniques to paediatricians wanting to do research

It will also run courses to teach clinicians the principles and practice of evidence based paediatrics. The Centre, in conjunction with the University of Sydney, will run the inaugural international course "Evidence Based Paediatrics and Child Health in the New Millennium" at the Hospital this week.

Professor Virginia Moyer from Texas, USA, a paediatrician and expert on evidence based medicine who is currently touring Australia as a guest speaker, will tutor at the course and will officially launch the Centre. She will speak at a number of conferences for health professionals in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne.

For further details please contact:

Gilly Paxton
Manager
Public Relations
The Children's Hospital at Westmead
9845 3568 or pager 9845 0000