[Biomedical research in the Netherlands: high quality due to cooperation between University Medical Centers and non-academic large teaching hospitals]. / Medisch-wetenschappelijk onderzoek in Nederland: hoge kwaliteit door samenwerking UMC's en opleidingsziekenhuizen.

OBJECTIVE: Most of the biomedical research is performed in University Medical Centers (UMC's). Increasingly, however, biomedical research is also done in non-academic large teaching hospitals, united in the Organization for Topclinical Hospitals (STZ) in the Netherlands. The objective of this study was to compare citation scores of biomedical publications from UMC's and STZ hospitals. DESIGN: Bibliometric analysis. METHOD: The Center for Science and Technology Studies of the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, annually analyzes the volume and quality (reflected by normalized citation scores) of the publications of all UMC's in the Netherland. Recently, also for STZ hospitals a similar analysis has been performed. RESULTS: Research publications from UMC's in the Netherland have normalized mean citation scores that are far above the mean world average. The normalized mean citation score of publications from STZ hospitals is lower when research is done independent of a UMC, whereas research that is a combined effort of UMC's and STZ hospitals has a very high mean normalized citation score. CONCLUSION: The Netherlands produces a relatively large volume of biomedical research and publications. Based on citation analysis research done in collaboration between UMC's and STZ hospitals has a very high quality. As most STZ hospitals mostly collaborate with a neighbouring UMC, the formation of research networks that overlap with existing teaching and training networks, could provided the necessary infrastructure for further stimulating this collaborative research.

Methods for the evaluation of hospital cooperation activities (Systematic review protocol).

BACKGROUND: Hospital partnerships, mergers and cooperatives are arrangements frequently seen as a means of improving health service delivery. Many of the assumptions used in planning hospital cooperatives are not stated clearly and are often based on limited or poor scientific evidence. METHODS: This is a protocol for a systematic review, following the Cochrane EPOC methodology. The review aims to document, catalogue and synthesize the existing literature on the reported methods for the evaluation of hospital cooperation activities as well as methods of hospital cooperation. We will search the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness, the Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Register, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and bibliographic databases including PubMed (via NLM), Web of Science, NHS EED, Business Source Premier (via EBSCO) and Global Health for publications that report on methods for evaluating hospital cooperatives, strategic partnerships, mergers, alliances, networks and related activities and methods used for such partnerships. The method proposed by the Cochrane EPOC group regarding randomized study designs, controlled clinical trials, controlled before and after studies, and interrupted time series will be followed. In addition, we will also include cohort, case-control studies, and relevant non-comparative publications such as case reports. We will categorize and analyze the review findings according to the study design employed, the study quality (low versus high quality studies) and the method reported in the primary studies. We will present the results of studies in tabular form. DISCUSSION: Overall, the systematic review aims to identify, assess and synthesize the evidence to underpin hospital cooperation activities as defined in this protocol. As a result, the review will provide an evidence base for partnerships, alliances or other fields of cooperation in a hospital setting. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42011001579.