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First published October 12, 2005 as JAMIA PrePrint; doi:10.1197/jamia.M1749
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 2006;13(1):16-23
© 2006 American Medical Informatics Association

A more recent version of this article appeared on January 1, 2006
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Submitted on November 19, 2004
Accepted on August 12, 2005

The Use and Interpretation of Quasi-Experimental Studies in Medical Informatics

Anthony D. Harris MD, MPH1*, Jessina C. McGregor PhD2, Eli N. Perencevich MD, MS1, Jon P. Furuno PhD2, Jingkun Zhu"""" MS2, Dan E. Peterson MD3, and Joseph Finkelstein MD2

Affiliation of the authors: 1 Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD; VA Maryland Health Care System, Baltimore, MD; 2 Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD; 3 Cereplex Inc., Germantown, MD

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Quasi-experimental study designs, often described as non-randomized, pre-post intervention studies, are common in the medical informatics literature. Yet little has been written about the benefits and limitations of the quasi-experimental approach as applied to informatics studies. This paper outlines a relative hierarchy and nomenclature of quasi-experimental study designs that is applicable to medical informatics intervention studies. In addition, we performed a systematic review of two medical informatics journals, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) and the International Journal of Medical Informatics (IJMI), to determine the number of quasi-experimental studies published and how the studies are classified on the above-mentioned relative hierarchy. We hope that future medical informatics studies will implement higher-level quasi-experimental study designs that yield more convincing evidence for causal links between medical informatics interventions and outcomes.






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