Ask, and ye shall retrieve

Richardson, W. Scott; Murphy, Audie L.

doi:10.1136/ebm.1998.3.100

Cited by 22 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 5 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…Others have proposed a categorical scale of data need complexity by measuring the amount of work required to accomplished the task for satisfying the information need [60, 86]. Structures have been defined to characterize a complex information need, including a problem statement, an event of interest, a comparison event (if necessary), and potential effects of the event of interest [50]. Unfortunately, little is known about the data needs of biomedical researchers [111–113].…”

Section: Usermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Facilitating biomedical researchers’ interrogation of electronic health record data: Ideas from outside of biomedical informatics

Hruby

Matsoukas

Cimino

et al. 2016

Journal of Biomedical Informatics

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Electronic health records (EHR) are a vital data resource for research uses, including cohort identification, phenotyping, pharmacovigilance, and public health surveillance. To realize the promise of EHR data for accelerating clinical research, it is imperative to enable efficient and autonomous EHR data interrogation by end users such as biomedical researchers. This paper surveys state-of-art approaches and key methodological considerations to this purpose. We adapted a previously published conceptual framework for interactive information retrieval, which defines three entities: user, channel, and source, by elaborating on channels for query formulation in the context of facilitating end users to interrogate EHR data. We show the current progress in biomedical informatics mainly lies in support for query execution and information modeling, primarily due to emphases on infrastructure development for data integration and data access via self-service query tools, but has neglected user support needed during iteratively query formulation processes, which can be costly and error-prone. In contrast, the information science literature has offered elaborate theories and methods for user modeling and query formulation support. The two bodies of literature are complementary, implying opportunities for cross-disciplinary idea exchange. On this basis, we outline the directions for future informatics research to improve our understanding of user needs and requirements for facilitating autonomous interrogation of EHR data by biomedical researchers. We suggest that cross-disciplinary translational research between biomedical informatics and information science can benefit our research in facilitating efficient data access in life sciences.

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Section: Usermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A user’s domain knowledge and technical knowledge are both associated with their cognitive styles and effective search strategies [17, 50, 91]. The users’ cognitive styles can be differentiated [85, 86] by search tactics.…”

Section: Usermentioning

confidence: 99%

Facilitating biomedical researchers’ interrogation of electronic health record data: Ideas from outside of biomedical informatics

Hruby

Matsoukas

Cimino

et al. 2016

Journal of Biomedical Informatics

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show abstract

“…Finally, from EBM techniques we can also learn about how to focus the question. These techniques have been well documented elsewhere in the literature 7–10 and require little explanation here. However, if librarians could learn to submit their foreground questions for research in the format:…”

Section: Focusing the Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Column Editor

Booth

2001

Health Info Libraries J

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“…Similarly, the "intervention" might not refer to a therapeutic procedure or drug, but to a diagnostic test or prognostic factor [6]. Other dimensions might be included (eg., restrictions on time, place, or clinical environments), but it is the explicit and unambiguous definition of each of the four basic dimensions that fulfils the requirements for specificity [7]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving question formulation for use in evidence appraisal in a tertiary care setting: a randomised controlled trial [ISRCTN66375463]

Villanueva¹,

Burrows²,

Fennessy³

et al. 2001

BMC Med Inform Decis Mak

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BackgroundThe specificity of clinical questions is gauged by explicit descriptions of four dimensions: subjects, interventions, comparators and outcomes of interest. This study determined whether adding simple instructions and examples on clinical question formulation would increase the specificity of the submitted question compared to using a standard form without instructions and examples.MethodsA randomised controlled trial was conducted in an evidence-search and appraisal service. New participants were invited to reformulate clinical queries. The Control Group was given no instructions. The Intervention Group was given a brief explanation of proper formulation, written instructions, and diagrammatic examples. The primary outcome was the change in the proportion of reformulated questions that described each the dimensions of specificity.ResultsFifty-two subjects agreed to participate in the trial of which 13 were lost to follow-up. The remaining 17 Intervention Group and 22 Control Group participants were analysed. Baseline characteristics were comparable. Overall, 20% of initially submitted questions from both groups were properly specified (defined as an explicit statement describing all dimensions of specificity). On follow-up, 7/14 questions previously rated as mis-specified in the Intervention Group had all dimensions described at follow-up (p = 0.008) while the Control Group did not show any changes from baseline. Participants in the Intervention Group were also more likely to explicitly describe patients (p = 0.028), comparisons (p = 0.014), and outcomes (p = 0.008).ConclusionsThis trial demonstrated the positive impact of specific instructions on the proportion of properly-specified clinical queries. The evaluation of the long-term impact of such changes is an area of continued research.

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Ask, and ye shall retrieve

Cited by 22 publications

References 5 publications

Facilitating biomedical researchers’ interrogation of electronic health record data: Ideas from outside of biomedical informatics

Facilitating biomedical researchers’ interrogation of electronic health record data: Ideas from outside of biomedical informatics

Column Editor

Improving question formulation for use in evidence appraisal in a tertiary care setting: a randomised controlled trial [ISRCTN66375463]

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