title: Evaluating the MEDLINE Core Clinical Journals filter: data-driven evidence assessing clinical utility.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  MEDLINE offers the Core Clinical Journals filter to limit to clinically useful journals. To determine its effectiveness for searching and patient-centric decision making, this study compared literature used for Morning Report in Internal Medicine with journals in the filter.
  
  
  METHODS
  An EndNote library with references answering 327 patient-related questions during Morning Report from 2007 to 2012 was exported to a file listing variables including designated Core Clinical Journal, Impact Factor, date used and medical subject. Bradford's law of scattering was applied ranking the journals and reflecting their clinical utility. Recall (sensitivity) and precision of the Core Morning Report journals and non-Core set was calculated. This study applied bibliometrics to compare the 628 articles used against these criteria to determine journals impacting decision making.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Analysis shows 30% of clinically used articles are from the Core Clinical Journals filter and 16% of the journals represented are Core titles. When Bradford-ranked, 55% of the top 20 journals are Core. Articles <5 years old furnish 63% of sources used. Among the 63 Morning Report subjects, 55 have <50% precision and 41 have <50% recall including 37 subjects with 0% precision and 0% recall.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Low usage of publications within the Core Clinical Journals filter indicates less relevance for hospital-based care. The divergence from high-impact medicine titles suggests clinically valuable journals differ from academically important titles. With few subjects demonstrating high recall or precision, the MEDLINE Core Clinical Journals filter may require a review and update to better align with current clinical needs.
authors.affiliation: Faculty Librarian, Health Sciences Library System, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Klein-Fedyshin
authors.forename: Andrea M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Ketchum
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Fedyshin
mesh_terms: D015510:Clinical Medicine; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000379:methods*; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D055811:Journal Impact Factor; D016239:MEDLINE; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011786:Quality Control
keywords: Core Clinical Journals; MEDLINE; clinical informatics; clinical librarians; information storage and retrieval; search filters