title: Information systems: the key to evidence-based health practice.
abstract: Increasing prominence is being given to the use of best current evidence in clinical practice and health services and programme management decision-making. The role of information in evidence-based practice (EBP) is discussed, together with questions of how advanced information systems and technology (IS&T) can contribute to the establishment of a broader perspective for EBP. The author examines the development, validation and use of a variety of sources of evidence and knowledge that go beyond the well-established paradigm of research, clinical trials, and systematic literature review. Opportunities and challenges in the implementation and use of IS&T and knowledge management tools are examined for six application areas: reference databases, contextual data, clinical data repositories, administrative data repositories, decision support software, and Internet-based interactive health information and communication. Computerized and telecommunications applications that support EBP follow a hierarchy in which systems, tasks and complexity range from reference retrieval and the processing of relatively routine transactions, to complex "data mining" and rule-driven decision support systems.
authors.affiliation: Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization, Regional Office for the Americas, 525 23rd Street NW, Washington, DC 20037, USA.
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Rodrigues
mesh_terms: D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services; D007256:Information Systems; D020407:Internet