Awareness, accessibility and adaptability of eviQ information and treatment protocols in clinical practice
The future is exciting in the field of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer care with the inclusion of this specialty in the Cancer Institute NSW cancer treatments online website, eviQ.
eviQ is a point of care clinical information system that assists
clinicians to deliver best practice cancer treatment and is
available at www.eviQ.org.au.
eviQ, formerly CI-SCaT, was created to reduce cancer treatment
variation and improve equity of access to information.
Data governance
A data governance framework and reference committees of
practising clinicians were established to provide a mechanism to
transform tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, integrate this
into information and treatment protocols based on the best
available evidence.
eviQ adheres to a governance process to ensure the quality of
published information. Content is prioritised according to the
following:
- variation in practice,
- variation in access to care, or
- the availability of suitable data.
All requests for content are considered if they include
legitimate treatments and meet the inclusion criteria. Content is
developed through a review process beginning with a systematic
literature review. Reference committee meetings allow for debate
around issues of clinical treatment, benchmarking of practice and
ensure content is applicable to the clinical setting.
Content is not placed on the website until consensus amongst the
committee is reached. Content development is a rigorous and
independent process. Annual surveillance for literature that could
affect existing content is undertaken. This ensures all information
is based on best available evidence and can be incorporated into
clinical practice.
By embedding a strong data governance framework, and ensuring
this framework is transparent to all users, eviQ can publish
information and treatment protocols that blend evidence with the
reality of clinical practice
Figure 1: eviQ Data Governance Framework
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AYA content stream
eviQ aims to improve the treatment and care of adolescent and
young adults diagnosed with cancer by providing targeted, point of
care information to fill the identified gaps in existing
information available to health professionals, as identified by a
national group of clinicians.
As a lot of excellent information is already available in the
area of AYA cancer care, eviQ will also link to existing resources
to provide a comprehensive online clinical information
resource.
eviQ users around the world
From Botswana to Belgium, eviQ is being used in over 56
countries around the world, making up five percent of users.
Canada, New Zealand and Ireland are the most frequent users outside
Australia.
Figure 2: Map of World Usage
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Who is using eviQ?
On average, there are around 49,000 hits on eviQ per day. Health
professionals make up 95 per cent of eviQ users with
patients/carers representing five per cent of total registrants.
The mix of users across Australia is fairly consistent, with the
two territories having slightly higher usage by patients and carers
and Northern Territory having higher usage by primary health care
professionals.
Figure 3: eviQ Users by Role
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About the authors
Rowena Nelson, Shelley Rushton and Sue Sinclair are employees of
the Cancer Institute NSW
Robyn Ward is Professor of Medicine at Prince of Wales Hospital
Sydney, and Program Director eviQ, Cancer Institute NSW
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