Using Electronic Health Information Resources in Evidence-Based Practice
Centre for Health Evidence, (2001)Abstract
Practicing evidence-based medicine involves integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available evidence from systematic research. The necessary skills include formulating a concise question that addresses uncertainties in patient management and quickly identifying the highest quality relevant information from the medical literature. The previous articles in this series have provided guides for the steps that follow the identification of the best evidence - systematically assessing its validity and applicability. In this Users' guide, we present an approach to choosing and subsequently searching the most efficient electronic resource for finding the best evidence. We have focussed primarily on electronic resources as these are generally easier to search and more current than many print products. With the relatively recent appearance of many of the resources we recommend, however, little research specifically addresses their relative merits. The approaches we describe in this guide reflect our experiences and those of our colleagues working individually or with medical trainees encompassing a wide range of learning levels.