Philadelphia, Pa. (June 25, 2012) – Researchers participate in the Electronic Data Methods (EDM) Forum to maximize shared experiences and learning for using electronic clinical data to improve medical care and making informed health decisions. A July supplement to Medical Care is a special 'EDM Forum' issue, highlights key issues researchers are facing, and innovative approaches that have been developed to build the infrastructure and conduct research using electronic clinical data. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins , a part of Wolters Kluwer Health .
The papers in the EDM Forum supplement share the experience and knowledge gained by eleven research teams, focusing on developing electronic clinical data systems to support comparative effectiveness research (CER) and patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR). The EDM forum supplement is freely available on the journal website .
New Systems for Using Clinical Data to Inform and Improve Patient Care
"These efforts have the shared goal of developing innovative strategies to address challenges in traditional research studies and data sources in order to generate evidence and help build a learning health system that can improve patient outcomes," comments Erin Holve, PhD, MPH, MPP of AcademyHealth , the leading national organization serving the fields of health services and policy research.
AcademyHealth leads the EDM Forum to "identify, synthesize, and share lessons learned" from eleven research projects, funded by the U.S. Agency for Health Research and Quality. The goal of the three-year project is to demonstrate proof of concept in using electronic clinical data to answer important questions about which medical treatments are most effective (CER) and to provide evidence that patients and professionals can use to make informed health care decisions (PCOR). The EDM Forum is supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) through the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009, Grant U13 HS19564-01.
The supplement articles address three main areas:
The ultimate goal is to create a "learning health system," using routine data to make care ever more efficient and effective. Dr Holve adds, "Highlighting lessons learned from the ambitious and diverse projects participating in the EDM Forum is an exciting challenge on its own; the PROSPECT, DRN, and Enhanced Registry projects are big, complex scientific efforts that require the coordination and collaboration of diverse scientific disciplines and care delivery organizations across the country"
The EDM Forum promotes sharing of information and expertise among researchers and with health organizations, agencies, and other interested stakeholders. In addition to the supplement in Medical Care , the EDM Forum shares information through an open access website at http://www.edm-forum.org .
About Medical Care
Rated as one of the top ten journals in health care administration, Medical Care is devoted to all aspects of the administration and delivery of health care. This scholarly journal publishes original, peer-reviewed papers documenting the most current developments in the rapidly changing field of health care. Medical Care provides timely reports on the findings of original investigations into issues related to the research, planning, organization, financing, provision, and evaluation of health services. In addition, numerous special supplementary issues that focus on specialized topics are produced with each volume. Medical Care is the official journal of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association
About Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is a leading international publisher of trusted content delivered in innovative ways to practitioners, professionals and students to learn new skills, stay current on their practice, and make important decisions to improve patient care and clinical outcomes. LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health , a leading global provider of information, business intelligence and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry. Wolters Kluwer Health is part of Wolters Kluwer , a market-leading global information services company with 2011 annual revenues of €3.4 billion ($4.7 billion).
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