The selection of high-impact health informatics literature: a comparison of results between the content expert and the expert searcher.
BACKGROUND
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) National Resource Center for Health Information Technology (NRC) created the Health IT Bibliography that contains peer-reviewed articles in eleven different health informatics categories. To create the bibliography, informatics experts identified what they considered the seminal articles in each category.


METHODS
Using the same eleven categories, an expert searcher (librarian) compiled a list of the "best" health informatics articles using information seeking and retrieval tools. The two sets of articles were then compared using high citation counts as a measure of value.


RESULTS
The expert searcher set (8,230) contained more than 3 times the citations to chosen articles compared to the content expert set (2,382). Of 60 articles, 27% of those articles (n = 16) were included in both sets. The frequently cited journals were similar for both sets, and one-third of the same authors were cited in both sets.


CONCLUSIONS
While citation counts and the timeliness of the articles differed in the two sets, the same authors and same journals were frequently present in both sets.


CONCLUSIONS
A best practice for locating high-quality articles may be collaboration between expert searchers and content experts.
Whipple
Elizabeth C
EC
Ruth Lilly Medical Library, Indiana University School of Medicine, 975 West Walnut Street, IB-310, Indianapolis, IN 46202-512, USA. ewhipple@iupui.edu
McGowan
Julie J
JJ
Dixon
Brian E
BE
Zafar
Atif
A
D001635:Bibliography of Medicine; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D055811:Journal Impact Factor; D008490:Medical Informatics