Making Science Computable Using Evidence-Based Medicine on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources: Standards Development Project

Andrey Soares, Lisa M. Schilling, Joshua Richardson, Bhagvan Kommadi, Vignesh Subbian, Joanne Dehnbostel, Khalid Shahin, Karen A. Robinson, Muhammad Afzal, Harold P. Lehmann, Ilkka Kunnamo, Brian S. Alper

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Background: Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has the potential to improve health outcomes, but EBM has not been widely integrated into the systems used for research or clinical decision-making. There has not been a scalable and reusable computer-readable standard for distributing research results and synthesized evidence among creators, implementers, and the ultimate users of that evidence. Evidence that is more rapidly updated, synthesized, disseminated, and implemented would improve both the delivery of EBM and evidence-based health care policy. Objective: This study aimed to introduce the EBM on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) project (EBMonFHIR), which is extending the methods and infrastructure of Health Level Seven (HL7) FHIR to provide an interoperability standard for the electronic exchange of health-related scientific knowledge. Methods: As an ongoing process, the project creates and refines FHIR resources to represent evidence from clinical studies and syntheses of those studies and develops tools to assist with the creation and visualization of FHIR resources. Results: The EBMonFHIR project created FHIR resources (ie, ArtifactAssessment, Citation, Evidence, EvidenceReport, and EvidenceVariable) for representing evidence. The COVID-19 Knowledge Accelerator (COKA) project, now Health Evidence Knowledge Accelerator (HEvKA), took this work further and created FHIR resources that express EvidenceReport, Citation, and ArtifactAssessment concepts. The group is (1) continually refining FHIR resources to support the representation of EBM; (2) developing controlled terminology related to EBM (ie, study design, statistic type, statistical model, and risk of bias); and (3) developing tools to facilitate the visualization and data entry of EBM information into FHIR resources, including human-readable interfaces and JSON viewers. Conclusions: EBMonFHIR resources in conjunction with other FHIR resources can support relaying EBM components in a manner that is interoperable and consumable by downstream tools and health information technology systems to support the users of evidence.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere54265
JournalJournal of medical Internet research
Volume26
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2024

Keywords

  • EBMonFHIR
  • FHIR
  • Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources
  • computable evidence
  • evidence-based medicine
  • evidence-based medicine on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Health Informatics

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