Research findings must be translated into health and economic benefits.
This was the call made by Minister of Health, Donville Inniss to medical students and residents at the twelfth annual Professor E.R. Walrond Scientific Symposium which took place yesterday at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Auditorium.
As he delivered his address, the health minister noted that for research to take its rightful place within development, it needed to be translational.
He said, “Research must drive evidence-based policy and programme development and implementation. The explosion of this new knowledge over the past 12 years needs to be translated into clinically useful deliverables. We need to translate research findings into health and economic benefits. Translation of clinical research findings into our real world is a must.”
He outlined the ban on smoking in public places as one which was informed by local and international research. As such, he was confident that such a policy would yield health benefits of reducing exposure to second-hand smoke for decades to come.
Moreover, Inniss emphasised the important role played by research at the tertiary level, noting it as an extremely important tool in medical education.
“Investing in research to improve health care must therefore be sustained and must build upon current success. I believe that [it is] only through such investment in our outstanding research talent that we can generate the sound evidence and exciting innovations upon which improvements to health can be based,” noted the health minister.He continued, “I cannot emphasise enough the need for the strategic collaborative partnership between the University of the West Indies and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in conducting these research symposia which encourage research in the first place and offer researchers the opportunity to present their work and their findings to their peers and to receive critical feedback.”
Inniss insisted that the Government had not been idle, stating that it had “demonstrated an unswerving commitment to tackling disease prevention wherever possible.” This, he noted, has been evident in the use of strategic partnerships which were recently materialised in the formal establishment of a working relationship through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences, the Ministry of Education and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
He stated that the MOU was critical to the Barbados Government’s relationship with the UWI and the QEH as a teaching facility, as well as an essential pre-requisite for the acquisition of accreditation status by the UWI Faculty of Medicine.
“We cannot sit back on the laurels of our current success. We must forever strive to do more to achieve the best that we can. As a result, there is a greater role for medical sciences research in the achievement of our objectives. Greater focus must be placed on tangible outcomes of the research reflected in terms of potential benefit to patients,” he closed. (JM)
