title: Bringing cohort studies to the bedside: framework for a 'green button' to support clinical decision-making.
abstract: When providing care, clinicians are expected to take note of clinical practice guidelines, which offer recommendations based on the available evidence. However, guidelines may not apply to individual patients with comorbidities, as they are typically excluded from clinical trials. Guidelines also tend not to provide relevant evidence on risks, secondary effects and long-term outcomes. Querying the electronic health records of similar patients may for many provide an alternate source of evidence to inform decision-making. It is important to develop methods to support these personalized observational studies at the point-of-care, to understand when these methods may provide valid results, and to validate and integrate these findings with those from clinical trials.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Health Informatics, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Blanca
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gallego
authors.affiliation: Centre for Health Systems & Safety Research, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, Australia.
authors.forename: Scott R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Walter
authors.affiliation: St Vincent's Clinical School, University of New South Wales, St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Richard O
authors.initials: RO
authors.lastname: Day
authors.affiliation: Centre for Health Informatics, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Adam G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Dunn
authors.affiliation: Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Vijay
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sivaraman
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Informatics Research, Stanford School of Medicine, CA 94305-5479, USA.
authors.forename: Nigam
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Stanford School of Medicine, CA 94305-5208, USA.
authors.forename: Christopher A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Longhurst
authors.affiliation: Centre for Health Informatics, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Coiera
keywords: cohort studies; comparative effectiveness; electronic health records; personalized prognosis