Evidence reviews
A rapid evidence review outlines the available evidence on a discrete topic or question using methods that balance responsiveness while maintaining quality and transparency. Evidence includes grey and peer review literature.
Mobile crisis response and outreach models
Added: 25 Jun 2026
What is the effectiveness of mobile crisis response and outreach models in reducing suicidal distress, self-harm or acute service use?
What are the defining characteristics, workforce configurations and operational models underpinning their effectiveness?
What impact do these models have on equity, accessibility, e.g. for rural or priority populations, service efficiency and continuity of care?
What are the systemic, organisational and cultural enablers and barriers to their successful implementation and integration with existing health and social care systems?
What are the defining characteristics, workforce configurations and operational models underpinning their effectiveness?
What impact do these models have on equity, accessibility, e.g. for rural or priority populations, service efficiency and continuity of care?
What are the systemic, organisational and cultural enablers and barriers to their successful implementation and integration with existing health and social care systems?
- Mobile crisis response and outreach models are community-based interventions that respond rapidly to people experiencing acute mental distress or suicidal crisis.
- Mobile crisis response and outreach models described or evaluated in the literature vary substantially in referral pathways, operating hours, workforce composition and degree of integration with broader systems of care.
- Studies on mobile crisis outreach models report a wide range of outcomes due to a lack of a standardised core set of outcome measures. The existing literature is predominantly descriptive, focusing on outcomes such as call volumes, incidence frequencies or proportions, and generally lacks comparative analyses with alternate models or pre-implementation baselines.
Shared decision making in clinical practice guidelines
Added: 25 Jun 2026
What are the strategies for systematically embedding shared decision-making in clinical practice guidelines, models of care, and frameworks?
- This evidence check aimed to explore strategies to facilitate shared decision-making in clinical practice through clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) and other similar clinician-facing guidance documents, and their associated outcomes. The peer-reviewed and grey literature reviewed was mostly descriptive, providing an overview of the development and integration of shared decision-making principles, concepts or tools into CPG. Few studies examined acceptability, usability and feasibility through real-world user testing.
- Several approaches to incorporating shared decision-making and patient decision aids in CPGs are described in the literature. These include: mentioning or recommending shared decision-making, highlighting options and patient involvement and choice, embedding or linking to an external or appropriate patient decision aid. Some patient decision aids are developed and updated alongside the CPG, often using the same evidence underlying the CPG recommendations.
Outpatient hysteroscopy
Added: 23 Jun 2026
In women undergoing hysteroscopy, how does an outpatient hysteroscopy compare to hysteroscopy under general anaesthesia in an operating theatre in terms of safety, efficacy, complication rates, patient experience and cost effectiveness?
For women undergoing hysteroscopy without general anaesthesia, what is the effectiveness of pain management strategies?
What does an outpatient hysteroscopy service look like in terms of clinical indications for selection of patients, infrastructure, equipment, and pre and post hysteroscopy requirements?
For women undergoing hysteroscopy without general anaesthesia, what is the effectiveness of pain management strategies?
What does an outpatient hysteroscopy service look like in terms of clinical indications for selection of patients, infrastructure, equipment, and pre and post hysteroscopy requirements?
- Throughout the literature, the term outpatient hysteroscopy is used interchangeably with office or ambulatory hysteroscopy. Outpatient hysteroscopy can include both diagnostic and operative procedures.
- Two economic modelling studies found that outpatient hysteroscopy is less costly than hysteroscopy performed in the operating room.
- There is a hierarchy of pain-control measures for hysteroscopy, ranging from no medications or use of oral non-sedating medications only, through to general anaesthesia.
Archive Clinical applications of AI: Retired living evidence
Added: 25 May 2026
Updated: 26 May 2026
What is the evidence around the emerging role of AI in clinical healthcare, such as for patient screening, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment selection and monitoring?
Are there examples of AI being used in real-world clinical settings for these purposes?
Are there examples of AI being used in real-world clinical settings for these purposes?
- Most studies on the role of AI in clinical healthcare focus on diagnosis, disease progression, and prognosis. AI is also used in treatment planning and patient monitoring.
- Meta-analyses show high diagnostic accuracy, often comparable to clinicians, in imaging-heavy domains including radiology, dermatology, and pathology. However, limitations include high-risk of bias and poor generalisability to real-world practice.
- There is limited evidence that use of AI in clinical applications leads to improved patient outcomes.
Archive Automating indirect clinical tasks and administration with AI: Retired living evidence
Added: 25 May 2026
Updated: 26 May 2026
What is the evidence around the emerging role of AI in healthcare with respect to indirect clinical care, such as alert systems for drug interactions or patient observations, AI scribes, or back-end functions such as coding, billing and audits?
Are there examples of AI being used in real-world clinical settings for these purposes?
Are there examples of AI being used in real-world clinical settings for these purposes?
- Clinicians and healthcare staff spend a large portion of their time on activities that support care, but are not direct patient care, e.g. documentation, scheduling, billing, and communication. AI may increasingly be used to automate these routine, repetitive, and data-intensive administrative tasks.
- There is some evidence of improved efficiency, however human oversight is still often required to mitigate error and risk.
ICU exit block
Added: 22 May 2026
What are the strategies to reduce exit block and after-hours discharge of patients from intensive care units (ICUs)?
How effective are the strategies in improving patient, provider and health system outcomes?
What are the contributing factors to ICU exit block and enablers and barriers to reducing ICU exit block?
How effective are the strategies in improving patient, provider and health system outcomes?
What are the contributing factors to ICU exit block and enablers and barriers to reducing ICU exit block?
- ICU exit block, or discharge delay, occurs when there is a delay between the patient being medically cleared for transfer out of the ICU and the time of the transfer. Delayed admission is where a patient requiring intensive care is not immediately transferred to the ICU. These are persistent challenges for ICUs.
- There is some evidence that ICU exit block, delayed admission and after-hours discharge are associated with increased mortality, risk of readmission to ICU and length of hospital stay.
- Organisation-level strategies were the most reported strategies to address ICU patient flow and reduce exit block and after-hours discharge. These were generally categorised as workflow processes, decision support tools, quality indicator data, outreach services and multidisciplinary communication.
Multiple chemical sensitivity
Added: 15 May 2026
How is multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) defined?
What are the diagnostic criteria?
What are the management options?
What resources are available for clinicians and patients?
What are the diagnostic criteria?
What are the management options?
What resources are available for clinicians and patients?
- Overall, MCS (also known as idiopathic environmental intolerance) is not a well understood illness. The evidence available on the condition and its treatment is limited.
- MCS is a chronic condition that can be caused by low-level exposure to a range of everyday chemicals in the environment. These can include perfumes, detergents and artificial colours, and preservatives.
- MCS can have many different triggers and symptoms which can vary from mild to severe. In severe cases, it can affect a person’s social life, daily activities or ability to work.
Paediatric rheumatology transition of care
Added: 21 Apr 2026
What organisational models of care have shown to improve the transition of care of young people with paediatric rheumatology conditions from paediatric to adult health services?
What are the experiences of young people with paediatric rheumatology conditions during their transition from paediatric to adult healthcare services, and how do their parents and carers perceive and navigate this process?
What are the experiences of young people with paediatric rheumatology conditions during their transition from paediatric to adult healthcare services, and how do their parents and carers perceive and navigate this process?
- Transition of care models reported in the literature often encompass multiple integrated components, which typically fall into two overarching categories: educational and self-efficacy interventions and organisational interventions designed to facilitate systemic and structural support throughout the care continuum.
- These can also be stratified by level of resource intensity: low-resource intensity interventions such as education and readiness assessment, medium-resource intensity interventions such as structured transition programs, and high-resource intensity interventions such as co-located clinics or dedicated transition coordinators.
- There is no standardised core set of outcome measures to determine the success or failure of transition of care programs, with most studies reporting on process-related outcomes such as retention at adult services after transfer, satisfaction or self-management skills.
Rapid evidence checks are based on a simplified review method and may not be entirely exhaustive, but aim to provide a balanced assessment of what is already known about a specific problem or issue. This brief has not been peer-reviewed and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement, nor is it an endorsed position of NSW Health. Evidence checks are archived a year after the date of publication.