Analytics: Harvard Offers Digital Repository of Medical Evidence

Ali Raja, MD, MBA, MPH, Executive Director, Harvard Medical School Library of Evidence and Executive Vice Chairman, Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital.  Dr. Raja describes the HMS Library of Evidence, a collaborative between the HMS Countway Library of Medicine and representatives of other HMS hospitals and Harvard institutions. It was founded to create a provider-led, sustainable, public repository of medical evidence to enable and promote the broad and consistent practice of evidence-based medicine in the U.S. in order to improve the quality of care while simultaneously reducing waste and cost.  The Library has been organized to serve as a public resource for medical evidence from all sources and, therefore, focuses on the accumulation, curation, organization and functionalization of medical evidence rather than on the creation of new evidence.