Advancing biomedical and health informatics knowledge through reviews of existing research

Abstract

Rigorous reviews that adhere to methodological standards can advance biomedical and health informatics knowledge by synthesizing research and assessing its quality, identifying knowledge gaps, and making recommendations for research, practice, or policy. Thus, reviews are an important manuscript type for Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) and complement other types of research papers. Reviews can be characterized based on 4 methodological aspects: search strategy (formal or informal), appraisal of quality (present or absent), synthesis (narrative or quantitative), and analysis (eg, quantity, quality, themes, knowledge gaps, limitations, recommendations). 1 In its 25 years, JAMIA has published more than 150 reviews; the frequency of reviews has increased in recent years with increasing awareness of the role of highquality reviews as a foundation for future research on a topic. This has included scoping reviews that provide a preliminary assessment of potential size and scope of available research literature, but do not include a formal appraisal of study quality. 2 Most recent JAMIA reviews are identified as systematic reviews that include a formal search strategy, appraisal of study quality, and a narrative 3 or quantitative (ie, meta-analysis) 4 synthesis of findings. JAMIA has also published critical reviews that synthesize the literature conceptually and offer key recommendations for the field. 5 This issue of JAMIA has 5 systematic reviews including 1 from an American Medical Informatics Association Working Group. 6 In this editorial, I highlight how these systematic reviews demonstrate their relevance to the JAMIA audience and meet best-practice standards for systematic reviews as delineated in the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement 7 and other sources. RELEVANCE TO JAMIA READERSAs a starting place, the purpose of the review must be relevant to JAMIA readers. Reviews that do not address a central topic in biomedical and health informatics are not a fit for JAMIA. The purpose may be relatively narrow or broad in scope. For example, Koleck et al 8 focused on use of natural language processing to process or analyze information related to a selected set of symptoms in electronic health record free-text narratives while other systematic reviews examined broader topics such as clinical pathways, 9 speech recognition technology for clinician documentation, 10 and evaluation approaches for visual analytic technologies in health. 6 FORMAL SEARCH STRATEGYSystematic reviews must be based on a formal search strategy. The search strategy should be included in the manuscript or as an online supplement. Use of an informationist who is expert in search strategies increases the likelihood that the search strategy is appropriate. An inadequate search strategy is a common reason for rejecting a review submitted to JAMIA. Moreover, it is important that multiple databases are searched and that the databases are a match for the review topic. For examp...

Electronic consultations (E-consults) and their outcomes: a systematic review

“…We conducted a systematic review of this topic, including use of a formal search strategy, an appraisal of study quality, and a narrative synthesis of findings. 2 We completed a narrative rather than a quantitative synthesis because our questions of interest are broad and the relevant studies are heterogeneous. 3 To inform our review, we performed a systematic search of 4 databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Embase, 4 and Cochrane Library) for articles about e-consults published in English between January 1 2015 and February 28 2019, using keywords including e-consult, econsult, electronic consult, and eReferral.…”