Advancing biomedical and health informatics knowledge through reviews of existing research

Abstract

Rigorous reviews that adhere to methodological standards can advance biomedical and health informatics knowledge by synthesizing research and assessing its quality, identifying knowledge gaps, and making recommendations for research, practice, or policy. Thus, reviews are an important manuscript type for Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) and complement other types of research papers. Reviews can be characterized based on 4 methodological aspects: search strategy (formal or informal), appraisal of quality (present or absent), synthesis (narrative or quantitative), and analysis (eg, quantity, quality, themes, knowledge gaps, limitations, recommendations). In its 25 years, JAMIA has published more than 150 reviews; the frequency of reviews has increased in recent years with increasing awareness of the role of highquality reviews as a foundation for future research on a topic. This has included scoping reviews that provide a preliminary assessment of potential size and scope of available research literature, but do not include a formal appraisal of study quality. Most recent JAMIA reviews are identified as systematic reviews that include a formal search strategy, appraisal of study quality, and a narrative or quantitative (ie, meta-analysis) synthesis of findings. JAMIA has also published critical reviews that synthesize the literature conceptually and offer key recommendations for the field. This issue of JAMIA has 5 systematic reviews including 1 from an American Medical Informatics Association Working Group. In this editorial, I highlight how these systematic reviews demonstrate their relevance to the JAMIA audience and meet best-practice standards for systematic reviews as delineated in the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement and other sources.