The Quality of Reporting of Health Informatics Evaluation Studies: A Pilot Study

The quality of reporting of evaluations in Health Informatics is considered to be open for improvement STARE-HI provides guidance for improved reporting. This study aims at establishing the quality of reporting prior to dissemination of STAR-E-HI. All evaluation papers in three leading Medical Informatics Journals published in 2005 have been assessed with the aid of STARE-HI. A total of 48 papers have been analysed with respect to title, abstract, keywords and study context. Main results indicate that the type of study is seldom reported in the title, that the structured abstract contains more information that an unstructured abstract, that important keywords are often forgotten. Also important information about the system assessed is often not mentioned explicitly. Our conclusion is that there is room fir improvement in the reporting of evaluations in health informatics. STARF-HI can be helpful in suggesting a structure for evaluation papers in Health Informatics and issues that should be included in such papers.