The automation of systematic reviews

Abstract

Would lead to best currently available evidence at the push of a button

Information overload in healthcare: too much of a good thing?

“…[13,28] To support systematic reviewers, researchers are working on methods to automate the entire process, from filtering new studies to automatic update of meta-analytic calculations, thereby reducing the time necessary to produce a systematic review. [29,30] Content formats: Considering the limited time available to healthcare personnel, those producing information (i.e., systematic reviewers) have to keep in mind the needs of this particular audience, [19] for example by increasing the use of data visualization to communicate complicated messages regarding the results of reviews [31] or creating specific overviews of reviews to make answering clinical questions in a short amount of time easier. [32] For patients the production of evidence-based decision-aids should be promoted in particular.…”

What have we learned after ten years of systematic reviews in international development?

“…These include the production of 'living systematic reviews' whereby reviews are an online document which is persistent, dynamic and constantly updated as more evidence becomes available (Elliott et al 2014). Others have proposed an automated process for updating reviews, whereby the systematic review, or part of it, such as the search and the meta-analysis, is entirely produced by machines at the press of a button (Tsafnat et al 2013).…”

Systematic review toolbox

“…In healthcare, a survey of current systems that provide support for SRs identified a variety of tools [2]. A cross-domain mapping study of visual data mining (VDM) techniques identified a number of VDM tools to support data extraction and data synthesis [3].…”