The Methods Minute is a bi-monthly newsletter which provides highlights, additions, and news on HSRMethods.org. Below is a list of the features, highlights, and PDF version from the current edition of the Methods Minute. Past editions of the Methods Minute are also available for download as PDFs.

February 2013 Methods Minute

Highlights...

New, Open Access Journal Turns Peer-Review Lens on ‘Learning How to Learn’ from Electronic Clinical Data
AcademyHealth’s AHRQ-sponsored Electronic Data Methods (EDM) Forum is pleased to announce the official launch of eGEMs, a free, peer-reviewed e-publication that publishes innovative ideas and methods using electronic clinical data (ECD) to advance health systems research, quality improvement (QI), and improve patient and community outcomes. Among the first set of published papers is a discussion of the inferential foundation of CER by addressing effect identification (Oakes, 2012). Dr. Oakes discusses reasons why "big data" may not yield better or more useful results. Learn more about eGEMs and instructions for authors at repository.academyhealth.org/egems. Visit eGEMs today and sign up for an upcoming webinar which will provide more information on this exciting new publishing venue!

New Funding Opportunity: Public Health Law Research (PHLR) Methods
Dissertation grant awards up to $20,000 each will be awarded to qualifying PhD students to conduct research on public health law research methods, including the development of legal datasets. Funding will cover qualitative or quantitative studies of the health effects of specific laws or regulations and/or related underlying mechanisms of effect, and empirical legal research that creates a multi-jurisdictional data set of laws suitable for quantitative research. For more information, visit the Funding Opportunities page on the PHLR website.

New Issue Brief Takes a Look at CER Methods for Studies Using Electronic Clinical Data
Increasing availability of electronic clinical data (ECD) such as data from electronic health records (EHRs) presents new opportunities to answer research questions that can drive improvement in patient outcomes. The EDM Forum’s new issue brief, "Getting Answers We Can Believe In: Methodological Considerations When Using Electronic Clinical Data for CER and PCOR", outlines important research design considerations when using ECD for comparative effectiveness research (CER) and patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR). For more information and other issue briefs and reports from the EDM Forum, please visit http://www.edm-forum.org/Publications/BriefsReports.

New User’s Guide for Developing a Protocol for Observational Comparative Effectiveness Research
Researchers from the Effective Health Care Program’s DEcIDE Network authored this 11-chapter guide that aims to serve as a resource for researchers when developing observational comparative effectiveness research (CER) studies. The user's guide identifies best practices for designing observational CER studies and standardizes the review of study protocols with checklists in each chapter. Topics in this user's guide include developing study objectives and questions, study design, data sources, and analysis.

New Research Report in AHRQ Effective Health Care Program Research Series
A new chapter on Bayesian mixed treatment comparison meta-analyses is now available from AHRQ. View all available chapters from the AHRQ methods guide.

Recent Publications, Data, & Presentations...

New Data Resource: Analyze Survey Data for Free
Learn about how and why to analyze US government survey data with free tools - the r language, the survey package, and (for big data) sqlsurvey + monetdb. Computer code for each survey data set consists of three core components: current analysis examples, massive ftp download automation, and replication scripts.

NHIS Questionnaire Changes Addressing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Recent changes to the National Health Interview Survey questionnaire are described in response to new data requirements generated by the need to monitor the impacts of the Affordable Care Act on the health care system and how they will assist researchers and policymakers to monitor and inform health reform. These changes were first implemented in the 2011 survey, were slightly modified in the 2012 survey, and are intended to be included in future years of the NHIS.

New SHADAC 2011 American Community Survey (ACS) Products
SHADAC (State Health Access Data Assistance Center) has updated its Data Center with the 2011 ACS insurance estimates and issued a State Chart Book using the new data. The maps and tables included in the Chart Book provide state-level insurance coverage estimates for the nonelderly population (age 0 to 64), children (age 0 to 18), and nonelderly adults (age 19 to 64). The chart book also presents separate estimates within each age group for the population with household incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. SHADAC will partner with AcademyHealth to host a webinar on the use of ACS for state health policy research on March 7, 2013 from 1:00-2:30pm ET (details below).

View Archived Recordings of Recent AcademyHealth Webinars:

• New Data Resources for Long-Term Care Research
• Examining Employers' Use of Massachusetts' Health Insurance Exchange to Inform Best Strategies Nationally Under the Affordable Care Act

Upcoming Events...

Free Webinar: Publishing in eGEMs: Learning How to Learn from New Data in HSR
Hear more about eGEMs (Generating Evidence & Methods to improve patient outcomes) from the editors of this new peer-reviewed journal, which publishes innovations and lessons learned using electronic clinical data to advance research, quality improvement (QI), and improve patient outcomes. eGEMs provides a credible venue for:

• Submissions that focus on informatics and research procedures and practices, and the methodological building blocks of learning health systems
• Rapid review and timely dissemination by highly qualified peers from multiple disciplines and sectors
• New publishing formats (e.g. visualizations)

Current authors will discuss their papers and rationale for submitting to eGEMs. The webinar will take place from 1-2:30pm ET on April 3, 2013.


Past Issues of the HSR Methods Minute