New logo launched, signalling EBVM focus

Today, we have unveiled our new brand identity, reflecting our sharpened focus from “charitable trust” to our new ambition to become the go-to knowledge portal for the veterinary community. The new logo represents our global focus on evidence-based veterinary medicine (EBVM) and our mission to provide clear and accessible evidence to veterinary healthcare teams.

“The new logo reflects who we are as an organisation and how willing we are to engage the veterinary profession in open, collaborative conversations and projects that bring good-quality evidence to practices.

“EBVM is not just a buzz word – it’s essential to practitioners who want to help their clients by adopting the results of research more quickly but don’t have the time to go through the millions of published veterinary papers,” says Nick Royle, our Executive Director.

Mr Royle was previously CEO of the Cochrane Collaboration, a leading human health-care organisation which focuses on evidence-based medicine. He says that the concept of evidence-based medicine has been spoken about in both human and animal health for many years, but needs global collaboration to make a significant improvement to daily practice.

“In human medicine,” Mr Royle says, “the Cochrane Collaboration has radically improved the availability of up-to-date information for medical practitioners. Over the last 20 years, they have published nearly 6000 systematic reviews - statistically rigorous evaluations of the evidence that don’t necessarily have to reach a clinically useful conclusion - and have another 2000 in preparation.

“Other than systematic reviews, human medics can rely on a variety of pre-appraised evidence to assist them with day to day clinical decisions.

“Until very recently this was not so for veterinary surgeons and we are very keen to support projects which can address this gap. The conversation we want to have with the profession is very much focused on ‘how we can get the best evidence where it is needed, when it is needed, in a way that is useful for clinical decision-making’.”

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) has been clear in its message to the profession and to RCVS Knowledge, saying that the case for EBVM “is one for improving the success rates of clinical decisions, saving lives and providing better standards of care.”

However, the RCVS also acknowledged that given the sheer number of veterinary papers, “it can be extremely challenging for a veterinary surgeon or veterinary nurse to support their treatment decisions by thorough research of the most recent literature.”[1] 

Dr Rita Jorge, our Head of Research, agrees. She says, “Busy veterinary practitioners cannot possibly stay on top of the 381 papers which are published on average each day in the veterinary sciences. The message that we are receiving from the vets and vet nurses is that they need help to filter good quality information and have it presented in a way that can be quickly assimilated into practice.

“Other than the help of our Information Service which can address individual queries, we’re counting on the EBVM Network through its Knowledge Groups to find ways to address this. We’re very encouraged that some groups (and individuals) have already started producing critically appraised topics, which we are calling Knowledge Summaries.”

The EBVM Network is a global group of people who are interested in making a collective change to veterinary practice, aiming for high-quality veterinary practice to be informed by high-quality, evidence-based decisions.

“The EBVM Network now has over 400 members, based in 34 countries worldwide,” says Dr Jorge, “That’s where the appropriate skills and knowledge are to make EBVM truly relevant to the practitioner. In this context, crowd sourced solutions can go a long way because no one group has all the answers or can address this huge gap by itself.

“The EBVM Network is going to meet and learn together for the first time this year in a conference and I would encourage every practitioner, academic and educator to come and help shape a truly innovative endeavour aimed at improving standards of veterinary care.”

Dr Jorge added: “The round shape of the logo represents the global reach of our ambitions and the speech bubble shows how willing we are to discuss, to find ways forward, to try, to engage. We’re excited about our new direction, and we feel that this new image reflects that.”

To find out more about the EBVM Network please visit http://knowledge.rcvs.org.uk/network/. To find out more about the conference visit www.ebvm-2014.org.