New, Open Access Journal Turns Peer-Review Lens Toward Improving The Research Process

eGEMs Features Innovations in the Use of Electronic Clinical Data to Improve Health Care

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AcademyHealth today announced the official launch of eGEMs, a free, peer-reviewed e-publication that will publish innovative ideas and practices using electronic clinical data to advance health systems research and quality improvement, and improve patient and community outcomes.

Rapid growth in the availability of electronic clinical data is supporting widespread innovation and use of these data for research and practice. However, the traditional pace of peer reviewed publication may limit rapid learning, and stakeholders have called for complementary strategies to accelerate the dissemination of innovative approaches. The goal of eGEMs ,short for "Generating Evidence and Methods to improve patient outcomes," is to help fill this need by facilitating rapid dissemination of strategies that advance the science of comparative effectiveness research, patient-centered outcomes research and quality improvement using electronic clinical data.

"Traditional peer-reviewed journals largely focus on the end result of a research project—the outcomes or findings—and less on the procedural, technical, and methodological building blocks that generate research findings … the traditional approach tends to narrow-in on the 'destination' of scientific discovery rather than the 'journey,'" writes eGEMs Editor-in-Chief Erin Holve, Ph.D., in the opening commentary. "In big science, particularly in big, collaborative, multi-disciplinary science using electronic clinical data, there are a lot of moving parts, a lot of sub-analyses, and a lot of contributors whose more granular contributions to the 'journey' have scientific merit and are useful to the community. This is where eGEMs comes in."

eGEMs is a product of the Electronic Data Methods (EDM) Forum, initiative to collect, synthesize, and share lessons learned from research projects that are developing and using electronic clinical data to conduct comparative effectiveness research and patient-centered outcomes research sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The publication seeks submissions in four main topic areas: analytic methods, clinical informatics, governance, and the learning health system. The goal of eGEMs is ultimately to promote dialogue and the sharing of ideas between researchers and other stakeholders in a credible and timely way, extending the efforts of the EDM Forum. Submissions may include original papers, visualizations, or videos that address methods to develop data and informatics resources. Holve, who is also director of Research and Education in HSR at AcademyHealth, leads the EDM Forum. 

In an accompanying commentary, AcademyHealth President and CEO Dr. Lisa Simpson explains the impetus and vision for eGEMs:

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