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 |