Summary
The rapidly growing production of healthcare information – both scientific and popular
– increasingly leads to a situation of information overload affecting all actors of
the healthcare system and threatening to impede the adoption of evidence-based practice.
In preparation for the 2015 Cochrane Colloquium in Vienna, we discuss the issues faced
by three major actors of this system: patients, healthcare practitioners, and systematic
reviewers. We analyze their situation through the concept of “filter failure”, positing
that the main problem is not that there is “too much information”, but that the traditional
means of managing and evaluating information are ill-suited to the realities of the
digital age. Some of the major instances of filter failure are inadequate information
retrieval systems for point-of-care settings, the problem of identifying all relevant
evidence in an exceedingly diverse landscape of information resources, and the very
basic lack of health information literacy, concerning not only the general public.
Finally, we give an overview of proposed solutions to the problem of information overload.
These new or adapted filtering systems include adapting review literature to the specific
needs of practitioners or patients, technological improvements to information systems,
strengthening the roles of intermediaries, as well as improving health literacy.
Zusammenfassung
Die wachsende Menge an wissenschaftlichen und nichtwissenschaftlichen Online-Veröffentlichungen
im Gesundheitsbereich führt zunehmend zu einer Situation des Informationsüberflusses,
die nicht nur alle Akteure des Gesundheitswesens betrifft, sondern auch ein Hindernis
für die Verbreitung evidenzbasierter Medizin darstellt. In Vorbereitung auf das Cochrane
Colloquium 2015 zeigen wir Probleme auf, mit denen sich drei wichtige Akteure – Patienten,
medizinisches Personal, Verfasser von systematischen Reviews – konfrontiert sehen.
Wir analysieren ihre Situation mithilfe des „Filter-Failure“-Konzepts: Das tatsächliche
Problem ist demnach nicht das Übermaß an Information, sondern dass die traditionellen
Praktiken der Auswahl von relevanten Informationen den Realitäten des digitalen Zeitalters
nicht gewachsen sind. Zu wichtigen Beispielen von „filter failure“ gehören unzureichende
Integration von elektronischen Informationssystemen in die Arbeitsabläufe medizinischer
Praxis, die Schwierigkeit, in einer heterogenen Informationslandschaft relevante Evidenz
zu identifizieren, sowie mangelnde Informationskompetenz. Dementsprechend zielen Strategien
zur Bekämpfung von Informationsüberfluss auf die Einführung neuer und die Anpassung
existierender Filtersysteme ab: Die Erstellung von Informationsformaten, die den Bedürfnissen
der einzelnen Akteure besser angepasst sind, die Verbesserung von Information-Retrieval-Technologien,
die Stärkung von Vermittlerrollen und die Verbesserung der Informationskompetenz aller
Akteure.
Keywords
Schlüsselwörter
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
June 19,
2015
Received in revised form:
June 19,
2015
Received:
February 18,
2015
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Published by Elsevier Inc.
