title: Knowledge translation in international emergency medical care.
abstract: More than 90% of the world population receives emergency medical care from different types of practitioners with little or no specific training in the field and with variable guidance and oversight. Emergency medical care is being recognized by actively practicing physicians around the world as an increasingly important domain in the overall health services package for a community. The know-do gap is well recognized as a major impediment to high-quality health care in much of the world. Knowledge translation principles for application in this highly varied young domain will require investigation of numerous aspects of the knowledge synthesis, exchange, and application domains in order to bring the greatest benefit of both explicit and tacit knowledge to increasing numbers of the world's population. This article reviews some of the issues particular to knowledge development and transfer in the international domain. The authors present a set of research proposals developed from a several-month online discussion among practitioners and teachers of emergency medical care in 16 countries from around the globe and from all economic strata, aimed at improving the flow of knowledge from developers and repositories of knowledge to the front lines of clinical care.
authors.affiliation: ArLac Health Services, Lexington, MA, USA. karnold@bu.edu
authors.forename: L Kristian
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.forename: Hisham
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Alomran
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Anantharaman
authors.forename: Pinchas
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Halpern
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hauswald
authors.forename: Pia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Malmquist
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Molyneux
authors.forename: Bishan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rajapakse
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ranney
authors.forename: Junaid
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Razzak
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D003906:Developing Countries; D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D004632:Emergency Medical Services; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006291:Health Policy; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D019359:Knowledge; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'