The McMaster Health Information Research Unit: Over a Quarter-Century of Health Informatics Supporting Evidence-Based Medicine.
J Med Internet Res
; 26: e58764, 2024 Jul 31.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39083765
ABSTRACT
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) emerged from McMaster University in the 1980-1990s, which emphasizes the integration of the best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values. The Health Information Research Unit (HiRU) was created at McMaster University in 1985 to support EBM. Early on, digital health informatics took the form of teaching clinicians how to search MEDLINE with modems and phone lines. Searching and retrieval of published articles were transformed as electronic platforms provided greater access to clinically relevant studies, systematic reviews, and clinical practice guidelines, with PubMed playing a pivotal role. In the early 2000s, the HiRU introduced Clinical Queries-validated search filters derived from the curated, gold-standard, human-appraised Hedges dataset-to enhance the precision of searches, allowing clinicians to hone their queries based on study design, population, and outcomes. Currently, almost 1 million articles are added to PubMed annually. To filter through this volume of heterogenous publications for clinically important articles, the HiRU team and other researchers have been applying classical machine learning, deep learning, and, increasingly, large language models (LLMs). These approaches are built upon the foundation of gold-standard annotated datasets and humans in the loop for active machine learning. In this viewpoint, we explore the evolution of health informatics in supporting evidence search and retrieval processes over the past 25+ years within the HiRU, including the evolving roles of LLMs and responsible artificial intelligence, as we continue to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge, enabling clinicians to integrate the best available evidence into their clinical practice.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Informática Médica
/
Medicina Basada en la Evidencia
Límite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Med Internet Res
Asunto de la revista:
INFORMATICA MEDICA
Año:
2024
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Canadá