Information systems: the key to evidence-based health practice
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Bulletin of the World Health Organization, November 2000, 78:1344-1351
The International Journal of Public Health
by Roberto J. Rodrigues
Regional Adviser in Health Services Information Technology, Pan
American Health Organization/World Health Organization
Available as PDF file format [8p.] at:
http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2000/issue11/bu0229.pdf
"Increasing prominence is being given to the use of best current evi-
dence in clinical practice and health services and programme manage-
ment decision-making. The role of information in evidence-based prac-
tice (EBP) is discussed, together with questions of how advanced in-
formation systems and technology (IS&T) can contribute to the estab-
lishment of a broader perspective for EBP. The author examines the
development, validation and use of a variety of sources of evidence
and knowledge that go beyond the well-established paradigm of re-
search, clinical trials, and systematic literature review.
Opportunities and challenges in the implementation and use of IS&T
and knowledge management tools are examined for six application ar-
eas: reference databases, contextual data, clinical data reposito-
ries, administrative data repositories, decision support software,
and Internet-based interactive health information and communication.
Computerized and telecommunications applications that support EBP
follow a hierarchy in which systems, tasks and complexity range from
reference retrieval and the processing of relatively routine transac-
tions, to complex data mining and rule-driven decision support sys-
tems."
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