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Table 1 Features of the three health information services that provide evidence to the Portal’s professional database

From: McMaster Optimal Aging Portal: an evidence-based database for geriatrics-focused health professionals

Feature

McMasterPLUS™

Health Evidence™

Health Systems Evidence

Focus

Clinical

Public health

Health system arrangements and implementation strategies

Types of documents

Overviews of systematic reviews;

Systematic reviews;

Meta-analyses;

Original articles

Overviews of systematic reviews;

Systematic reviews;

Meta-analyses

Evidence briefs for policy;

Overviews of systematic reviews;

Systematic reviews;

Systematic reviews in progress (protocols);

Systematic reviews being planned (registered review titled);

Economic evaluations/costing studies;

Health reform descriptions;

Health system descriptions;

Canada’s health systems documents (available only in Canada unless subscribed);

Ontario’s health system documents (available only in Ontario unless subscribed);

Intergovernmental organizations’ health systems documents

Inclusion criteria

Must meet explicit criteria for scientific merit for the prediction, diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, or economics of a health problem and have a minimum mean score of 4/7 for clinical relevance plus minimum mean score of 4/7 for newsworthiness

5 criteria for relevance:

Systematic review,

Relevant to public health or health promotion practice,

Subject is effectiveness,

Includes evidence on outcomes,

Describes search strategy

2 overarching criteria:

Relevant to health system governance, financial or delivery arrangements, or implementation strategies;

Meets the individual criteria for one of the document types

Quality raters

Physicians from each pertinent discipline (61 possible clinical disciplines in total, e.g., internal medicine, cardiology, psychiatry)

Health Evidence™ reviewers

McMaster Health Forum staff

Quality rating tool

McMaster Online Rating of Evidence (MORE) system [13];

Clinician comments

Health Evidence™ Quality Assessment Tool

Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) [18]

Quality ratings

Relevance:

7 = Direct and highly relevant,

6 = Definitely relevant,

5 = Probably relevant,

4 = Possibly relevant-likely of indirect or peripheral relevance at best;

Newsworthiness:

7 = Useful information, most practitioners in my discipline definitely don’t know this,

6 = Useful information, most practitioners in my discipline probably don’t know this,

5 = Useful information, most practitioners in my discipline possibly don’t know this,

4 = Useful information, most practitioners in my discipline possibly already know this

8–10/10 = strong;

5–7/10 = moderate;

1–4/10 = weak

Score out of 11 (or lower if some criteria are not applicable)

Database fields

Title;

Authors;

Full journal citation;

PubMed-indexed for MEDLINE (PMID);

Link to user-friendly summary;

Link to the abstract in PubMed;

Quality ratings;

Scientific abstract;

Clinical comments provided by raters from each relevant discipline

Title;

Quality rating;

Full journal citation;

Links, if available, to:

– Article full-text,

– Abstract in PubMed,

– Related podcast,

– User-friendly summary or Cochrane plain language

summary,

– Related webinar;

Scientific abstract;

Keywords

Title;

Findings:

– Links to user-friendly summary, if available,

– Links to scientific abstract or document summary,

– Link to full-text report, if available for free;   Recency, quality and context of findings:

– Year published,

– Quality rating,

– Country focus; Additional details about the research:

– Type of document,

– Type of question,

– Focus, e.g., specific, general,

– Priority area, if relevant,

– Target, e.g., country,

– Health systems topic(s),

– Theme, e.g., optimal aging, health promotion/primary prevention,

– Domain,

Publication details:

– Full citation,

– Author email,

– Digital object identifier (DOI)

Indexing

Medical subject headings (MeSH);

Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine—Clinical Terms (SNOMED—CT)

Health Evidence Keywording Tool™

Health Systems Evidence taxonomy of health system governance, financial and delivery arrangements and implementation strategies that can support change in health systems

Search filters

Discipline;

Category:

– Primary prevention/health promotion,

– Treatment,

– Quality improvement,

– Diagnosis,

– Prognosis,

– Etiology,

– Economics,

– Clinical prediction

guide

Topic area (Interests);

Setting;

Intervention strategy;

Intervention delivery method;

Published date;

Review quality rating;

Review type;

Text options;

Primary prevention/health promotion

Type of document;

Topic;

Domain;

Low- and middle-income country focus;

Publication date;

Focus;

Primary prevention/health promotion

Email alert fields

Disciplines:

– Emergency medicine,

– General practice/family practice,

– Occupational and environmental health,

– Public health,

– General internal

medicine—primary care (United States),

– Hospital doctor/hospitalists,

– Internal medicine (or subspecialties),

– Gynecology,

– Psychiatry,

– Anesthesiology,

– Surgery—general (or subspecialties),

– Special interest—pain;

Cut-off scores:

– Relevance: 4–7,

– Newsworthiness: 4–7;

Alert frequency:

– Daily,

– Every other day,

– Every 3 days,

– Every 4 days,

– Every 5 days,

– Every 6 days,

– Weekly

Interests:

– Addiction/substance abuse (or subcategories,

– Chronic diseases (or subcategories),

– Communicable disease/infection,

– Dental health,

– Emergency preparedness and response,

– Environmental health,

– Health through the ages (or subcategories),

– Injury prevention/safety,

– Mental health,

– Nutrition,

– Physical activity,

– Sexual health,

– Social determinants of health:

Alert frequency: monthly

Health system topics:

– Delivery arrangement,

– Financial arrangement,

– Governance arrangement,

– Implementation strategy;

Priority domains:

– Diseases or:

 • Infectious diseases,

 • Non-communicable diseases,

 • Other (or subcategories);

– Providers or:

 • Allied health professional.

 • Informal/family caregivers,

 • Lay/community health workers,

 • Nurse,

 • Pharmacist,

 • Physician (or specialty),

– Sectors or:

 • Home care,

 • Hospital care,

 • Long-term care,

 • Primary care,

 • Public health,

 • Rehabilitation,

– Technologies or:

 • Devices,

 • Diagnostics,

 • Drugs,

 • Surgery;

Alert frequency: monthly