Our Reviews

Electronic Medical Records

Impact of electronic medical record on physician practice in office settings: a systematic review
Status: Complete

A realist review was conducted to examine the impact of electronic medical record (EMR) on physician office practice. Studies evaluating office-based EMR impact on quality of care were included. Using the Clinical Adoption Framework as a conceptual scheme, six areas were examined: prescribing support, disease management, clinical documentation, work practice, preventive care, and patient-physician interaction. The review determined overall positive and negative impacts found and identified areas needing improvement. The review also identifed conditions that influence EMR success.

Publication: Lau F, Price M, Boyd J, Partridge C, Bell H, Raworth R. Impact of electronic medical record on physician practice in office settings: a systematic review. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2012;12(10). http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6947/12/10/abstract

Perceived Impact of Electronic Medical Records in Physician Office Practices: A Review of Survey-Based Research
Status: Complete

Using a subset of survey-based research papers selected but not included as part of the above review, this review addressed the perceived impact of EMRs from the perspective of clinician users and non-users. This review aimed to answer two key questions:

• What areas of EMR impact have been addressed most in the survey-based papers (and subsequently, which areas have received little attention)?
• For those areas that have been addressed most, what have the subjective views been so far regarding the perceived impact of EMRs among users and nonusers in some key areas?

Publication: Bassi J, Lau F, Lesperance M. Perceived impact of electronic medical records in physician office practices: a review of survey-based research. Interact J Med Res 2012; 1(4):e3. http://www.i-jmr.org/2012/2/e3/

 

Health Information Systems

Measuring value for money: a scoping review on economic evaluation of health information systems
Status: Complete

This review examined the current state of knowledge in published eHealth economic evaluation studies on computerized systems for health information processing, decision support, and management reporting. In addition to synthesizing the findings, we looked at the methods used to conduct full economic analyses, input cost analyses, and cost-related outcomes analyses to provide guidance for future evaluations.

Publication: Bassi J, Lau F. Measuring value for money: a scoping review on economic evaluation of health information systems. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 2013;20:792-801. http://jamia.bmj.com/content/20/4/792.full

A Review on Systematic Reviews of Health Information System Studies
Status: Complete

The primary purpose of this review was a meta-synthesis of these systematic reviews to organize them by healthcare domains, research designs, care settings, study populations, HIS features, measurement metrics and key findings. For example, one synthesis involved all electronic medication management studies to show what have been done, how and where, and lessons learned. Quality assessment criteria and derived scores from the reviews were summarized where available, with methods of reporting the HIS studies. Removing duplication of studies, the list of roughly 1200 studies formed a smaller corpus of HIS studies where those with quality scores reported were assessed for high quality studies, and flagged as such. An additional literature search was conducted to locate the latest HIS evaluation studies that have not yet been reviewed to expand this corpus.

The systematic review of existing systematic reviews on health information system field evaluation studies was conducted in order to: (a) describe the different health domains, health information system features and healthcare settings that have been examined; (b) examine the different study designs, research methods and performance/outcome measures that have been used to date; (c) offer guidance on how one should design, conduct and appraise health information system field evaluation studies; and (d) discuss the implications of findings on the future need, design and conduct of health information system studies.

Publication: Lau F, Kuziemsky C, Price M, Gardner J. A review on systematic reviews of health information system studies. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 2010; 17(6):637-645. http://jamia.bmj.com/content/17/6/637.abstract

 

Medication Reconciliation

Use of Information Technology in Medication Reconciliation: A Scoping Review
Status: Complete

A scoping review was undertaken to identify studies involving use of information technology (IT) in medication reconciliation (MedRec) in order to determine how IT has been used to facilitate steps of the MedRec process. Various types of IT ranging from e-mail to specialized MedRec software were mapped to categories of functionality based on the IOM’s key capabilities of an electronic medical record and to a generic MedRec workflow. Examples of promising new applications to support MedRec were also discussed.

Publication: Bassi J, Lau F, Bardal S. Use of information technology in medication reconciliation: A scoping review. Annals of Pharmacotherapy 2010; 44(5):885-97. http://www.theannals.com/cgi/content/abstract/44/5/885

 

Complex Interventions

Complex Interventions in Healthcare and Health Informatics: A Scoping Review
Status: Complete

A scoping review was conducted to understand the current state of knowledge on complex healthcare interventions, including complex health informatics interventions. These complex interventions attributes identified can be used planning, conducting, reporting and critiquing complex interventions studies. A second objective was to identify logistical considerations for operationalizing complex interventions. The results from this scoping review should help researchers and practitioners identify, conduct, and appraise complex interventions studies.

Publication: Kim J. Complex Interventions in Healthcare and Health Informatics: A Scoping Review. Enabling Health and Healthcare Through ICT: Available, Tailored and Closer. 263.