[Patient participation in the Cochrane Collaboration--barriers, experience, and concepts in Germany]

The aim of the Cochrane Collaboration (CC) is to bridge the gap of information transfer between the clinician and the patient. For this purpose, the CC pursues since years the concept of involving the consumers in the process of collaborative review groups. In spite of a positive experience altogether, some barriers (for example the communication between the scientists involved in CC review groups and the patients) remain to be overcome. To improve the information transfer, the Cochrane Hematological Malignancies Group (CHMG) has built a consumer network within the initiatives of the German Cancer Association, for example devising specific training concepts. The German Cochrane Center, on the other hand, focuses on direct information of patients and interested consumers, and provides translated consumer synopses of all available systematic reviews (SR) adapted for use in the German health system. In the future, it will be necessary to develop more concepts to optimize the patient participation process, and to find methods to measure the impact of these projects on the patient outcome.