Who we are

We are a non-profit organisation working to bring scientific evidence closer to everyone making health decisions. We do it by creating tools that accelerate the search and selection of evidence, and coordinating the efforts of more than 1000 collaborators from around the world. We use the most rigorous methodological standards, so that researchers can access the best possible evidence, and experts and citizens can make the best decisions, improving our health and quality of life.

Epistemonikos Foundation was co-founded in 2009 by Gabriel Rada and Daniel Pérez, a physician and computer scientist who were initially supported by the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. In 2012, alongside a team of experts in evidence-based medicine and software development, they officially launched the Epistemonikos database (https://www.epistemonikos.org/), which has become the world’s largest repository of healthcare systematic reviews.

 

In 2013, seeking greater transparency and diversity in the team, we spinned off and legally became a non-profit organisation. Our original mission: to bring evidence closer to those who make health decisions, through technology and innovation.

 

In 2014 we signed an agreement with the journal Medwave to publish Living FRISBEES: summaries of evidence using Epistemonikos. The agreement guarantees open access and, bilingual and peer-reviewed publication, as well as the “living” republication of a FRISBEE whose evidence base is updated. Led by CeUC, Universidad Católica’s centre of evidence, different research teams have published, as of May 2018, more than 120 FRISBEEs.

 

In 2016, we began work on our platform L·OVE (Living Orveview of the Evidence), which gathers all the scientific evidence relevant for a specific health topic, organises it in PICO format, and keeps it up to date. In 2017, Chile’s Ministry of Health used L·OVE to update the body of evidence of 150 questions from 22 clinical guidelines -in only 6 months.

In May 2018 we wrote to the Health Commission of the Chilean Congress informing them of the main conclusions of our study about the therapeutic uses of cannabis and its derivative products. The study, which began in 2016, synthesizes all the scientific evidence relevant to the mentioned topic. It was our ethical duty to contribute to the national debate and to facilitate legislative decisions aligned with the health of the Chilean people. 22 organisations adhered to this letter.

Since 2016 we are official partners of The Cochrane Collaboration. As a result of this alliance, the Cochrane Library now offers the option to search the Epistemonikos database from its website.

Today we are a multidisciplinary and pluralistic team. With the support of our hundreds of collaborators spread worldwide, we run a stable, self-financed system and are able to provide open access to various tools and research outputs. Alongside organisations of worldwide importance such as the Cochrane Collaboration, GRADE, McMaster University, WHO, OPS, the Ministry of Health of Norway and the Ministry of Health of Chile, we continue to engage in new and exciting projects.