Evidence-based care: 1. Setting priorities: how important is the problem? Evidence-Based Care Resource Group.

There are important gaps between research evidence and clinical practice. Any effort to narrow them must include setting priorities for assessment, establishing effective manoeuvres, and measuring and improving performance. Because physicians have limited time the first step is to set priorities with the use of explicit criteria to ensure that time and other resources are invested where they can have significant benefit. Useful criteria include the frequency of the problem, the magnitude of its consequences, the availability of research evidence addressing it and the likelihood that its management can be improved.