About the institution

Cochrane is a non-profitable international organisation, whose main function is the search and synthesises of the information found on scientific investigation worldwide. With the finality of giving high-quality evidence in healthcare and collaborating in the decision making on medical interventions and public health.

History

The organisation was founded in 1993 as a response to the necessity of having relevant, current and trusted information of all the clinical trials that have been done in health science. One of the people who point out this problem was the British physician, Archibald Cochrane, from whom the name was taken for this organisation and whose work helped in the development of the discipline that now is known as Evidence-based medicine.

How is it done?

About 30,000 volunteers from more than 130 nationalities and from different health fields are involved in conducting Cochrane studies and systematic reviews. Currently, there are more than 7,500 systematic reviews which are in the Cochrane digital library and are available to the general public with their "Plain language summary" section, translated into various languages, making Cochrane evidence more accessible to people who seek information and/or use these studies.

Why is it important?

Cochrane is governed by the strict selection, analysis and searching methods making high-quality evidence that has been considered useful in health decision-making, whether at the clinical or public health level. Evidence-based medicine has contributed to the advance and discovery of new clinical treatments; allowing the scientific, medical and clinical practitioners community to keep up-to-date with the new studies carried out around the world.