Ea. Balas et al., THE COLUMBIA REGISTRY OF INFORMATION AND UTILIZATION MANAGEMENT TRIALS, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 2(5), 1995, pp. 307-315
Citations number
41
Categorie Soggetti
Information Science & Library Science","Medicine Miscellaneus","Computer Science Information Systems
Objective: To systematically locate, register, and abstract informatio
n used in comparing effects of various information services (computeri
zed and noncomputerized) and utilization management interventions on t
he process and outcome of patient tare. Design: Manual and electronic
database searches located reports that met three main criteria: 1) ran
domized controlled trial; 2) information or utilization management int
ervention in the study group with no similar intervention in the contr
ol group; and 3) effect of the intervention on the process and/or outc
ome of patient care had been measured. Published reports were register
ed in the Columbia Registry. Results: Nearly 600 reports were collecte
d from 24 countries and 189 different publications. Frequently tested
interventions included patient or physician education, telephone follo
w-up, patient or physician reminders, and home care services. Frequent
ly reported effect variables included hospitalization rate, length of
stay, immunization rate, and mortality rate. Standardized formal tools
were developed for the separation and abstraction of practical inform
ation and methodologic details from the collected trial reports. Concl
usions: The registry provides a new source of information for meta-ana
lyses, traditional reviews, and executive summaries of quality improve
ment of health services. The streamlined knowledge engineering process
of quality evaluation and abstraction of critical information can gen
erate helpful information for practitioners and researchers simultaneo
usly.