BACKGROUND: As one of the research councils under the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), health research priority setting has been the mandate of the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD) since its establishment in 1982. The development of the National Unified Health Research Agenda (NUHRA) convenes the major stakeholders for health in the country to establish the priorities for health research. The NUHRA aims to address the most urgent health issues in the country for the generation of solutions to the health concerns of the country.

OBJECTIVES AND METHOD: Through document review, this paper describes the approaches and lessons learned in research priority setting since the establishment of the Philippine National Health Research System.

RESULTS: The Philippines has employed a bottoms-up, top-down, and a combination of both approaches to develop its health research agenda.

CONCLUSION: The health research agenda-setting must consider evolving funding sources, its link to production of researches with high probability of knowledge translation to health technology innovation, and policy formulation. Measuring the impact of the NUHRA to the health systems and health situation of the country is a difficult assessment, but the gradual change in healthcare technology utilization and evidence-informed policies towards health equity can be a subjective measurement of the NUHRA's success.

Research ; Support Of Research ; Philippines

Recent studies have shown that educational interventions for ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) prevention may result in positive outcomes in intensive care units. However, other studies investigating this kind of intervention have produced inconsistent results. Thus this paper reports a protocol for systematic review and planned meta-analysis to investigate the association of instituted VAP educational interventions with clinician learning and patient outcomes. In this review, the authors will identify relevant citations from electronic databases, reference lists, and other sources; screen articles against predetermined eligibility criteria; appraise each study using the Cochrane Collaboration’s risk of bias assessment tools and combine acquired evidence using the meta-analytic approach. The results of this review are crucial to assist clinicians and policy-makers in making well-informed decisions regarding VAP prevention practices for mechanically ventilated patients. This review protocol followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses for Protocols 2015 guidelines and was registered with PROSPERO as CRD42016051561.
Pneumonia, Ventilator-Associated