MedNoreg+: A possible contribution to systematic Information Retrieval and access for evidence-based-decision-making

Abstract

Description of the topic theme: To develop a database system called “MedNoreg+” that will enable: 1.Users to systematically search with Norwegian and Swedish terms, apart from English (room for expansion to other languages). 2.All PubMed posts will be loaded automatically into MedNoreg+. 3.Auto index MeSH terms on all the posts, which NLM has not yet been able to index manuall. Relevance of the topic for HTA information management issues, and the overall theme of the HTAi Annual Meeting: Today, PubMed, which is the main open access database in biomedical sciences, seems to have problems to cope with the overwhelming number of new publications. There is a lag-behind in systematic retrieval of publications compared to what is actually published. A complete MeSH index analysis in the year 2020, indicated that there were approximately 2,6 million publications still in the queue to be MeSH indexed. By March 2022, there is a queue of approximately 4,35 million publications not yet indexed with MeSH. This implies that the recent publications are among those that lacks the MeSH terms, and hence problematic. More than 40 % of the documents with a publishing year of 2021 or 2022 still do not have MeSH terms assigned (Per. com.). Besides, the main and important international databases within biomedical sciences can only allow systematic search in English language. According to the experience of the herein author, at the University in Tromsø (UiT), this seems to be a barrier to some of the non-native English speaker, and especially students. As such, we believe that our project will significantly contribute to solving such information retrieval problems, and thereby a contribution in helping researchers, practitioners and students to access up-to-date HTA documented knowledge-evidence quickly and systematically. The idea is that MedNoreg+ should enable the published-information to be quickly & systematically searched and easily available to all users as soon as published. It is our hope to develop MedNoreg+ as an Open Access (OA) database, based on well-known search interface (e.g., SveMed+). It will allow combinations with Boolean Operators in both Simple & Advanced Search modes; But more so, will allow to “Explode search” for MeSH terms in the query. We will make sure that MedNoreg+ should be easy to use and understand, such that even those who are not familiar with specific biomedical terminology should be able to systematically search and access literature/information searched. Any search in this database will simultaneously systematically search all the entries published, be it in English, Norwegian and Swedish. Conclusion: MedNoreg+ will automatically index all publications with MeSH terms. MedNoreg+ facets will give better overview of search results and allow possibility to systematically search, and access up-to-date biomedical research knowledge as soon as published; be it published in national, regional (e.g., Nordic Journals) or international journals. Users will be able to search literature using both English and Norwegian, apart from other languages such as Swedish, that the database MedNoreg+, is supposed to have, in additional to inclusion of Nordic posts that are not currently included/searchable in PubMed. Easy to search for all users, and enable researchers, practitioners, and students to systematically search in their local languages for retrieval of information results in all available languages. Thus, we believe our project’s contribution will help in addressing “Lifecycles Of The Literature In Health Technology Assessment”, as it will allow systematic retrieval and quick access to up-to-date information in biomedicine field as a whole. Thereby a contribution to knowledge for decision-making in the healthcare- and social welfare services, by quickly making available up-to-date information for use in summarising research through systematic reviews (evidence syntheses) and health technology assessments