Evidence-based reviews and databases: are they worth the effort? Developing evidence summaries for emergency medicine

A broad range of relevant evidence-based resources within and outside of emergency medicine (EM) collates and summarizes research evidence pertaining to many questions relevant to clinical emergency care. Such resources may or may not constitute the equivalent of health care recommendations, and their relationship to clinical decision-making may be complex. Many efforts in evidence-based medicine resource development, and their products, are marginally relevant to EM practice but may serve as useful models for parallel EM relevant efforts. A trade-off exists between synthesis quality and ease of practitioner access and use. Keeping all such resources up to date is a major challenge. Although observational evidence suggests that dynamic interactivity and information retrieval technology may enhance practitioner utilization, little evidence exists supporting the absolute or comparative effectiveness of different kinds of resources and databases in enhancing evidence uptake or changing clinician behavior.