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Abstract
Background and objective: Policymakers need timely access to different types of evidence that can be integrated with the messages arising from systematic reviews. The Evidence-Informed Healthcare Renewal (EIHR) Portal makes readily available online policy-relevant documents that address healthcare renewal in Canada. It is a collaborative effort between the McMaster Health Forum and the EIHR Roundtable, which is comprised of various governmental and non-governmental Canadian health organizations. Our objective is to describe the development, content and usage of the EIHR Portal.
Methods: The EIHR Portal was developed in several stages: (1) A taxonomy of 24 document types that address priority areas identified by Canadian health care organizations was iteratively developed and integrated with a pre-existing taxonomy of health systems arrangements; (2) Roundtable members referred documents for eligibility assessment; and (3) Two independent reviewers assessed documents for eligibility and coded each based the taxonomies. Descriptive statistics about the Portal’s contents and usage are collected each month.
Results: There are717 documents included in the EIHR Portal. The top document types are situation analysis (n = 271), health and health system data (n = 134) and jurisdictional review (n = 71). The top national priority areas addressed in the documents are health human resources (n = 586), quality as a performance indicator (n = 392) and information technology (n = 312). There are 1081, 71 and 570 systematic reviews that address these same priority areas in HSE, and interested users are prompted to consult them with links. There are currently 373 policymakers, stakeholders and researchers signed up to receive EIHR Portal content updates, and 713 of the users registered for Health Systems Evidence (HSE) have enabled content from the Portal.
Conclusions: The EIHR Portal provides health policymakers in Canada with easy access to the range of policy-relevant evidence focused on health systems while promoting the use of systematic reviews through lateral linkages to HSE.
Methods: The EIHR Portal was developed in several stages: (1) A taxonomy of 24 document types that address priority areas identified by Canadian health care organizations was iteratively developed and integrated with a pre-existing taxonomy of health systems arrangements; (2) Roundtable members referred documents for eligibility assessment; and (3) Two independent reviewers assessed documents for eligibility and coded each based the taxonomies. Descriptive statistics about the Portal’s contents and usage are collected each month.
Results: There are717 documents included in the EIHR Portal. The top document types are situation analysis (n = 271), health and health system data (n = 134) and jurisdictional review (n = 71). The top national priority areas addressed in the documents are health human resources (n = 586), quality as a performance indicator (n = 392) and information technology (n = 312). There are 1081, 71 and 570 systematic reviews that address these same priority areas in HSE, and interested users are prompted to consult them with links. There are currently 373 policymakers, stakeholders and researchers signed up to receive EIHR Portal content updates, and 713 of the users registered for Health Systems Evidence (HSE) have enabled content from the Portal.
Conclusions: The EIHR Portal provides health policymakers in Canada with easy access to the range of policy-relevant evidence focused on health systems while promoting the use of systematic reviews through lateral linkages to HSE.