Making Science Computable Using Evidence-Based Medicine on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources: Standards Development Project

Soares, Andrey and Schilling, Lisa M. and Richardson, Joshua and Kommadi, Bhagvan and Subbian, Vignesh and Dehnbostel, Joanne and Shahin, Khalid and Robinson, Karen A. and Afzal, Muhammad and Lehmann, Harold P. and Kunnamo, Ilkka and Alper, Brian S. (2024) Making Science Computable Using Evidence-Based Medicine on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources: Standards Development Project. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 26. e54265. ISSN 1438-8871

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Abstract

Background

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has the potential to improve health outcomes, but EBM has not been widely integrated into the systems used for research or clinical decision-making. There has not been a scalable and reusable computer-readable standard for distributing research results and synthesized evidence among creators, implementers, and the ultimate users of that evidence. Evidence that is more rapidly updated, synthesized, disseminated, and implemented would improve both the delivery of EBM and evidence-based health care policy.

Objective

This study aimed to introduce the EBM on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) project (EBMonFHIR), which is extending the methods and infrastructure of Health Level Seven (HL7) FHIR to provide an interoperability standard for the electronic exchange of health-related scientific knowledge.

Methods

As an ongoing process, the project creates and refines FHIR resources to represent evidence from clinical studies and syntheses of those studies and develops tools to assist with the creation and visualization of FHIR resources.

Results

The EBMonFHIR project created FHIR resources (ie, ArtifactAssessment, Citation, Evidence, EvidenceReport, and EvidenceVariable) for representing evidence. The COVID-19 Knowledge Accelerator (COKA) project, now Health Evidence Knowledge Accelerator (HEvKA), took this work further and created FHIR resources that express EvidenceReport, Citation, and ArtifactAssessment concepts. The group is (1) continually refining FHIR resources to support the representation of EBM; (2) developing controlled terminology related to EBM (ie, study design, statistic type, statistical model, and risk of bias); and (3) developing tools to facilitate the visualization and data entry of EBM information into FHIR resources, including human-readable interfaces and JSON viewers.

Conclusions

EBMonFHIR resources in conjunction with other FHIR resources can support relaying EBM components in a manner that is interoperable and consumable by downstream tools and health information technology systems to support the users of evidence.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number:	10.2196/54265
Dates:	Date Event 6 April 2024 Accepted 25 June 2024 Published Online
Uncontrolled Keywords:	evidence-based medicine; FHIR; Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources; computable evidence; EBMonFHIR; evidence-based medicine on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources
Subjects:	CAH11 - computing > CAH11-01 - computing > CAH11-01-01 - computer science
Divisions:	Architecture, Built Environment, Computing and Engineering > Computer Science
Depositing User:	Gemma Tonks
Date Deposited:	20 Aug 2025 08:33
Last Modified:	20 Aug 2025 08:33
URI:	https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/16608