Working Group for Assessment of Health Information Systems
of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI)

in cooperation with Working Group Technology Assessment and Quality Development in Health Care of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA)

The Working Group welcomes everybody who is interested in the evaluation of health information systems, or who may already have experiences and results that he or she wants to share. In any case, please contact the chairs of the Working Group.

You want to know more? Just join our mailing list!

GEP-HI has been published!

After intensive work of many colleagues, the GEP-HI guidelines are now published:

Nykänen P, Brender J, Talmon J, de Keizer N, Rigby M, Beuscart-Zephir MC, Ammenwerth E. Guideline for good evaluation practice in health informatics (GEP-HI). Int J Med Inform. 2011 Dec;80(12):815-27.

Planned activities for 2012

Based on the good discussions we got in the workshops at Medinfo2010 in Cape Town, and taking into account the available resources, the following immediate activities are planned within the next months:

1. STARE-HI: An explanation paper that gives examples and explanations to STARE-HI will be finished and published soon. Also, some colleagues are working on applying/extending STARE-HI for sepcific types of studies such as usability studies or qualitative studes. Contact: Jytte Brender, jytte@brender.dk
2. The WG will start to develop impact indicators for different types of systems. A core-group will develop a methodology, and then further groups will each work on indicators for different types of information systems (such as CPOE, eHealth etc.). Contact: Nicolet de Keizer, n.f.keizer@amc.uva.nl
3. The WG plans to write a position paper on the impact of the Medical Device Directive. Contact: Jan Talmon, talmon@mi.unimaas.nl

GEP-HI will be published soon!

The Guidelines for Good Evaluation Practice in Health Informatics (GEP-HI) are finalize now and will be published soon in the International Journal of Medical Informatics.

Activities at MIE 2011

The Working Group organized or contributed to several activities at MIE2011 (see "activities" for more details).

Planned activities for 2011

Based on the good discussions we got in the workshops at Medinfo2010 in Cape Town, and taking into account the available resources, the following immediate activities are planned within the next months:

1. Finalization and publication of the mini-STARE-HI guidelines (planned: November 2010)
2. Finalization and publication of the GEP-HI guidelines (planned: December 2010)
3. Finalization and publication of the STARE-HI elaboration paper that gives additional explanations and examples on each STARE-HI item (planned: Spring 2011)

Medinfo 2010

The working group organized workshops on GEP-HI and STARE-HI at Medinfo 2010, 12-15th September 2010 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town, South Africa. Please find details and all slides here.

Report on activities 2009 - 2010

For the EFMI councail, the WG EVAL summarized its activities, outcomes and publications 2009/2010. Please find this report here.

IMIA Recommendations on Education

The new IMIA-Recommendations on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics have just been published and can be accessed for free at http://www.schattauer.de/en/magazine/subject-areas/journals-a-z/methods/contents/preprint-online/07th-jan-2010.html.

Page 8, item 1.19 list the following item as recommended learning outcome: "Evaluation and assessment of information systems, including study design, selection and triangulation of (quantitative and qualitative) methods, outcome and impact evaluation, economic evaluation, unintended consequences, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, evidence-based health informatics"

Planned activities for 2010

The working group plans to have the following activities in 2010:

• Work on an explanation paper for STARE-HI.
• Work on a mini-STARE-HI for conference papers.
• Finalization of GEP-HI.
• Develop supporting material for GEP-HI.
• Organize GEP-HI workshop at medinfo.
• Update the evaluation database (http://evaldb.umit.at)

Report on activities 2002 - 2009

For the EFMI board, the WG EVAL summarized its activities, outcomes and publications 2002 - 2009. Please find this report here.

Workshop at AMIA 2009 in San Francisco

The working group will have a workshop on GEP-HI: Good evaluation practice guidelines in health informatics at AMIA 2009 in San Francisco, Nov14 - 18 2009. Everybody interesting is invited to join!

Workshop at MIE 2009 in Sarajevo

The working group had a successful workshop on GEP-HI: Introducing guidelines for good evaluation practice in health informatics at MIE2009 in Sarajevo, Aug30-Sept2 2009. Please find some slides of this workshop here.

STARE-HI - Statement on Reporting of Evaluation Studies in Health Informatics

STARE-HI Version 1.0 has now been published: Talmon J, Ammenwerth E, Brender J, de Keizer N, Nykänen P, Rigby M. STARE-HI - Statement on reporting of evaluation studies in Health Informatics, Int J Med Inform 2009; 78(1): 1-9.

Please look at the STARE-HI website to find recent information on it.

Contact

If you have any questions, or if you would like to participate, please contact: