Informatics and Knowledge Translation

Abstract

To ensure that the benefits of knowledge translation synthesis are accessible to care providers at the point of decision-making, fast, efficient, usable clinical information systems are required. Medical informatics appears to hold the greatest promise to be able to create systems with the necessary capacity and functionality. Emergency medicine needs to be actively engaged at all levels of the process. This includes driving the development and filtering of emergency-specific synopses and summaries. It requires advocating for hardware and software that suit the needs of the emergency department environment. It is increasingly important to educate and participate on committees with funders and policy-makers to ensure they support this growing evolution. To determine the outcome of these initiatives, careful evaluation is required to inform the discussion. End-users need to be actively involved in the development and usability testing of clinical information retrieval technology and clinical decision-support systems and make certain relevant best evidence is readily accessible and formatted to meet the needs of the working emergency physician. The integration of knowledge translation into clinical practice, and the impact of delivering electronic clinical decision-support, requires methodologically sound studies to confirm or refute its benefits and guide future development of medical informatics.