Academy Health
Making the Most of Research Resources for Health Services Research: HSRProj and HSRR
August 2014
The following transcript is for the AcademyHealth seminar, Making the Most of Research Resources for
Health Services Research: HSRProj and HSRR. Please visit www.academyhealth.org/hsrproj for more
information on HSRProj and the online seminar.
Welcome and thank you for joining the seminar, Making the Most of Research Resources for Health
Services Research: HSRProj and HSRR. My name is Nisha Kanani, and I am a Senior Associate at
AcademyHealth. I am the primary contact for HSRProj, a freely available online database that provides
project information for ongoing health services research. This webinar is brought to you through the
HSRProj program, coordinated by the National Information Center on Health Services Research and
Healthcare Technology, or NICHSR, with funding from the National Library of Medicine. The webinar is
being conducted by AcademyHealth, the professional society of health services research and health
policy analysis. AcademyHealth seeks to improve health and health care by generating new knowledge
and moving knowledge into action.
As part of our professional development program, we provide online training opportunities in HSR
methods, skill building, and other timely topics in the field. Please visit AcademyHealth's website at
www.academyhealth.org to learn more about the resources offered by AcademyHealth, as well as the
field of HSR. HSRProj and HSRR are programs supported by the National Library of Medicine. Please
visit the NLM NICHSR website at www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr to learn more about other training
opportunities and research resources that you may find useful. Librarians participating in today's event
may obtain continuing education credit through completing the online evaluation that will be found on
AcademyHealth's webpage, beneath this presentation. Please e-mail hsrproj@academyhealth.org if you
have any questions.
Today's seminar will provide an overview of the set of specialized resources developed for HSR,
specifically HSRProj and HSRR. We will have an opportunity for questions and answers at the end of
the seminar. The learning objectives of today's seminar are: to understand the scope of HSRProj, its
contents, and how researchers can use it to obtain the best information; to create an effective search
strategy within HSRProj; to understand the research uses of HSRR, what it contains, and how it can
inform your research; to successfully conduct a search in HSRR; and to manipulate results of both
databases successfully. Here is a glossary of acronyms that we will be discussing during today's
seminar.
Please note that these will be explained and referred to throughout the discussion. As shown, HSRProj
stands for Health Services Research Projects in Progress. HSRR stands for Health Services and
Sciences Research Resources. HSRIC is the Health Services Research Information Central. And the
NICHSR is the National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology. I
am pleased to introduce our two faculty for the webinar today, Patricia Gallagher and Lynn Whitener.
Patricia Gallagher is a Librarian with the NLM NICHSR and works at the HSSR's database and on the
HSRIC web portal. Prior to NLM, Patricia was a Senior User Services Librarian at the New York
Academy of Medicine and worked for an NYC-based academic medical center and nursing school
library. She has served as a Managing Editor for New York Online Access to Health and as an instructor
to the New York Academic Medicine Junior Fellows Program. She has presented and published on
topics related to evidence-based medicine, history of medicine and consumer health. Patricia has an
MLS from Queens College and a Master of Arts from Hunter College. She is a fellow of the New York
Academy of Medicine and a distinguished member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals.
Lynn Whitener holds an undergraduate degree in sociology, a Master of Science degree in library
science, and a Doctorate in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was
a Librarian for the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research for 25 years. While there, she
worked with NLM and AcademyHealth to create HSRProj and HSRR. Since 2006, she has served as
the President of Information Packaging LLC to provide research and editorial services to public and
private sector clients. This includes RTI and the University of (inaudible). Dr. Whitener is a Senior
Consultant to NLM for issues around HSR in public health.
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Academy Health
Making the Most of Research Resources for Health Services Research: HSRProj and HSRR
August 2014
We're pleased to have both faculty here with us today. First, I will turn it over to Patricia to talk more
about HSRProj.
Thank you, Nisha. Today we're going to talk a little about one of the methods of getting the most out of
your research for Health Services Research, and I'm going to speak specifically about HSRProj. Let's
talk about how you get to HSRProj. This is the main NLM website, www.nlm.nih.gov. The orange arrow
points to the Health Services Research and Public Health link on the main website. Click there, and that
will bring you to the main page for the Health Services Research and Public Health Information
Programs at NLM. The page is divided into two columns with resources for public health on the right,
and health services resources on the left. Beneath the web link to our health services research portal
HSR Information Central, you'll find links to the two databases we are highlighting in this webinar. Let's
click on the link to HSRProj, which brings you to the HSRProj Home Page. We'll be going through all the
features available on this page in detail.
First, let's start with our partners in this endeavor. HSRProj is a collaborative project of the National
Library of Medicine's National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care
Technology. AcademyHealth and the Cecil Sheps Center at the University of North Carolina all work
together on this important project. So what is HSRProj? HSRProj was created in the 1990s to address a
clear need of the very diverse and far-flung health services research community: how to find readily
available information about funded research projects before their results are available in a published
form. A free searchable database, which contains information about grants and projects in progress
related to the full range of topics addressed by Health Services Research and Public Health Systems
and Services Research. Currently, it contains more than 2,700 records, almost 1,200 of which represent
ongoing or recently-completed projects from 149 funders including public and private organizations, both
domestic and international. Find out what is going on in particular research areas, what organizations
are funding what or locate potential colleagues before research results are published. This is helpful not
only for researchers but also for policymakers, practitioners, and funders, and for the general public.
And as you will see later, the HSRProj database also can be used to show trends over time in research
investments and activities. This is an example of a record in HSRProj. The record provides a great deal
of valuable information. Important searchable text words from the title and abstract, as well as MeSH
headings, provide search access points when doing your research. The project investigator,
organization that is performing the research and its location, the Agency that is supporting the research,
and the years during which the research will be performed are all available.
And, as you'll see later, all of the data will help you to fine-tune your search. Recently, funding this data
about the project, where available, was added to the record. Each project is assigned a searchable
status -- ongoing, which is research that is currently in progress, as defined by the funder; completed,
which is a project that ended within the last five years; or archived, which is a project that ended more
than five years ago. The findings of a recently-completed but not yet published Health Services
Research project can be especially valuable to help policymakers and other researchers. By listing
ongoing and recently-completed research projects, HSRProj can provide researchers and policymakers
with a vital link to information that is not readily available from other sources. Need to see the link to this
project? On the left-hand side of the Home Page, you'll find links to several ways to limit your research.
If you only want to see the most recently added data, just click on the "Browse Latest Projects" link,
which is circled. Or if you want to see what grants and contracts different agencies are funding, click on
"Browse Supporting Agencies." You'll see a list of all the funders who contribute information to HSRProj.
And a little later, we'll demonstrate how you get over from their names to the information that they're
funding. Need some more details on how to search the database?
The Search Tips link will bring you to a set of instructions that will assist you. There are basic criteria for
inclusion of a project in the HSRProj database. It should be noted that HSRProj does not include
systematic reviews or other publication-only projects. Projects included must be in the area of Health
Services Research and must be ongoing or the end date must fall within six months prior to the date of
the project when it appears in the database. Sheps and AcademyHealth are always seeking new
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Making the Most of Research Resources for Health Services Research: HSRProj and HSRR
August 2014
funders of Health Services Research, as well as new projects. This is an evolving process with new
funders added on a regular basis If you are involved in a project that meets these criteria and your
project doesn't appear in the database, please let us know. The URL for the submission form is here.
Just fill it out, and our colleagues will evaluate it for inclusion in HSRProj. Now let's talk a little more
specifically about searching HSRProj. Searching the database is quite easy. And our new search engine
makes limiting your results easy as well.
Let's look at some of the ways you can search HSRProj. First, we'll do a basic search. HSRProj
supports phrase searching. Just put your phrase in quotations marks, as we've done with the phrase
"public health." It also supports the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT. Here we search the phrase
"public health" and combine it with an AND with the word "hispanic." And here are the search results.
Let's look at the first record of the 506 items that the search pulled up. This is an excerpt of a very long
abstract. The phrase "public health" shows up twice in the abstract. And the word "hispanic" is in the title
and repeats 11 times in your abstract. The search results will display in relevancy order, based on your
search and the algorithm used by the search engine. But perhaps 506 records are too many for you to
go through, and you would like to do some further limitations. Here are just some of the limiters you can
select from the side panel of the search. You can limit to ongoing, completed or archived data in the
Project Status field. You can limit by the name of the investigator; the performing organization or
supporting agency; the initial and final year of the project; the state in which the investigation is taking
place or the country in which the study is taking place; or the keywords that show up the most based on
your particular search. Here is a display of how those limiters will look on your search. It's in a twocolumn format so that you can see them all on this screen.
All you have to do is click on any one of them. And please notice that each limiter can have as much as
ten pages for you to select from. They are listed in alphabetical or numerical order to help you begin
limiting your results. Once you've done your limits, perhaps you need to change one or more of the
limits. No need to start over. From the top of the right side of the screen, you'll see the limits you have
selected. We've marked those with red arrows. If you don't want a particular limit applied any longer, just
click on the left, the ''X" next to it. That limit will be removed from your search, while your other limits will
remain. There are several different ways to save your results. You can email them to yourself or to a
colleague, or you can export the information in three different formats. Just click on the Actions
dropdown and select from there. Different formats, different needs. Here are the examples of what you
will see from the text results, HTML results and XML results. Next we're going to look at the interactive
state map from the HSRProj Home Page. Just click on the map icon, which the red arrow is pointing to,
and you'll see the interactive map display. The display will show you how many projects are being
researched in the 50 United States. By highlighting the state with your map, you can see the number of
ongoing and completed projects.
And the map also gives you a picture of in which parts of the states the research is being performed. But
by clicking on the state, you can go over research of all the projects within that state. Here, I've selected
New York. The arrow at the top shows you the exact search strategy that is being used. You are
searching for all projects in which the Performing Organization is in New York, and the projects are
either ongoing or completed. Notice that in the limits, New York is the only state displayed. This record
shows the results of limiting by state. Remember that the State limitation applies only to the Performing
Organization, here represented by the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City. The Supporting
Agency is the National Institute on Aging in Maryland. The state limitation is especially useful if you want
to see all the research going on in your home state. Sometimes a simple search is just not enough. The
advanced search features permit a great deal of flexibility. You want to see what is being researched in
several states? Just use the CRL key to select multiple states. Not sure which year a project started or
ended? Use the initial final or initial year range to search for projects within those years. You can also
search for specific terms within the latest update. Just change that limit to YES, select one or more
categories from the project status, or limit your search to one or more countries. Your search results will
display with those advanced search limiters in place, and allow you to limit even more precisely from
there.
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Making the Most of Research Resources for Health Services Research: HSRProj and HSRR
August 2014
Earlier, we showed you the Home Page link to the list of Supporting Agencies. Once you are on that list,
you can perform a search from here. Just click on the number of projects, the red arrow points to the
number, and your search results will be limited to just that agency. As you can see here, the limit to
Supporting Agency is the only one visible. And all the search results are to AHRQ. But you could select
other limiters. And when you're finished, you could remove the limiter to AHRQ by clicking the "X" at the
top. Here's another way to find HSRProj and HSRR easily. Make this make web portal, HSR Information
Central, your home page. HSR Information Central serves the needs of the HSR community by
providing links to high-quality current grey literature on high-interest topics, from legislation and data and
statistical resources to more focused issue areas, such as our most recent topic pages on Community
Benefits/Community Health Needs Assessment, and evaluation resources for assessing HIT systems.
The portal has links to our PubMed search queries for HSR and comparative effectiveness research, as
well as to important resources from our partners at AHRQ and AcademyHealth. New topic pages are
added regularly. We welcome your suggestions for topics and sources. News and other content are
updated frequently. Sign up for GovDelivery subscription and RSS Feeds to stay in the know. The Past
is Prologue. for an overview of the evolution of the field of health services research, please check out
this video. It weaves together interviews with historic leaders of our field, and provides insight into the
field's pursuit of important questions on health care access, cost and quality.
We also offer tool and tutorials. We would like in particular to call your attention to one of our more
popular educational resources, which has recently been updated. Introduction to Health Technology
Assessment, a detailed online textbook, provides extensive information on concepts, methods and
issues related to the important topic, Health Technology Assessment. I want to thank you for your time.
And I am now turning the broadcast back to Nisha Kanani. Thank you, Nisha.
Thank you, Pat, for an informative presentation on HSRProj. I would like to contribute to the discussion
on HSRProj by providing examples on how to utilize HSRProj data to examine trends and topics in the
field. In recent years, AcademyHealth HSRProj staff have utilized HSRProj data to conduct analysis on
timely topics in the field of HSR such as public health services and systems research, health disparities
in health equity research, and an analysis of the trends in the field of HSR. We have partnered with
several external organizations to conduct queries of the database, as well as develop collaborative
reports on the topics. If you would like more information on these and other analytic products, please
visit www.academyhealth.org/hsrprojupdate.
The following are examples of what HSRProj can utilize for us. These results are from a study
conducted in 2012 by AcademyHealth staff that monitor the current state of the field of Health Services
Research at the time. I showed on this slide HSRProj can be utilized to examine HSSR projects over
time to obtain insight on how the field has changed. Users are able to monitor projects over time and, for
example, can narrow the search down by topic, by MeSH and project status. I've shown on this slide
HSRProj can be utilized to examine how ongoing research is mapped. For this purpose, we mapped the
location of performing organizations across the country to better understand where the research was
being conducted in 2011. Similarly, users can access a zip code associated with the project to
understand where research is being conducted. I've shown on this slide HSRProj can be used to track
the agencies that are supporting or performing current health services research. For this purpose, we
compared the top agencies that were funding HSR in the years 2005, 2008 and 2011. Similarly, users
can access names and more information on both supporting and performing organizations to
understand who is funding and conducting the work.
As Pat mentioned, all HSRProj records are tagged with corresponding medical subject heading terms.
HSRProj is a great resource to better understand how projects are tagged, as well as identify research
on a variety of focuses. For this purpose, we compared the top MeSH terms in the years 2005, 2008
and 2011. Similarly, users can utilize MeSH terms to understand the trends and topics in the field. If you
have any questions on how to analyze HSRProj or specific questions on the analysis presented, please
contact me at hssrproj@academyhealth.org or Patricia Gallagher at patricia.gallagher@nah.gov. Now I
will turn it over to Lynn Whitener to talk about HSRR.
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Making the Most of Research Resources for Health Services Research: HSRProj and HSRR
August 2014
Thank you, Nisha. Hello, I'm Lynn Whitener. I'm so happy to be able to share with you today about
Health Services Research and Health Services and Sciences Research Resources. HSRR, a database
that can be exactly what you need for health services research and public health students and faculty.
The HSRR database was designed for health care researchers and health sciences librarians seeking
data resources for health services research, behavioral and social sciences, and public health. HSRR is
a searchable database of information about research datasets, instruments and indices, and software.
Users may examine and compare characteristics of these tools. The database includes brief
descriptions of research resources and links to PubMed. It also includes URLs of providers for additional
information or other access to the resources.
There are currently citations to 1,600 tools here. Please note, HSRR "links." HSRR does not store the
items themselves. So here are the record types you will find there: clinical records; discharge
summaries claims records; epidemiological surveys; health/ behavioral/ social surveys; disease
registries; birth registries; and, since this is health services research, data about practitioners, programs
and facilities. An HSRR record includes a description of the database instrument or software; a link to
the tool itself; a link to the provider; and a link to a PubMed search that will show you how the tool has
been used by other researchers. MeSH terms are also available to help identify records. As I said, at
this time, HSRR has about 1,600 records. These break down as 955 datasets, 295 instruments, and 58
software titles. Software is included because one of the users that I have in mind when I add things to
HSRR is a student, who's working independently outside a department of public health or health
services research, or a more sophisticated researcher moving into a new field. They may not be so
familiar with the tools of the trade. Also, apps and wizards fit very nicely here. PHSR is Public Health
Systems Research, a subset of the HSRR system. These records will be of specific interest to public
health researchers.
Public health practitioners could look here for tools to map their own research projects. So how do tools
get into HSRR? HSRProj is monitored as new records are added. And any databases or questionnaires
mentioned in the abstracts are added to HSRR. Major publications and blogs in Health Services
Research and Public Health are monitored. And suggestions come from colleagues and users. And it's
important to note that the beauty of HSRR for you is that the content is aimed at your work, and the
sources are widely varied. Tools are pulled from Federal, State and local agencies, foundations,
research, private industries. And the scope is international. We'd like to hear about things that you think
belong here. You can find this suggestion link on the main search page. So now let's begin to search
HSRR. You begin just as you did for HSRProj. Start at the NLM Home Page. Under "Research at NLM,"
click on Health Services Research & Public Health. And here's the page you've seen before. This time,
instead of HSRProj, go to the next resource, Health Services Sciences Research Resources, HSRR.
And here's our search screen. Let's take just a moment to look at all that's available here. On the left,
just as with HSRProj, there are links to more information about HSRR, other NLM services, and related
information. Note that there are tips and help here. "Phrases should be in quotes" is mentioned both
above and below the Search box. Frequently asked questions and search tips are clickable here. So
here are some of the main things to keep in mind while searching HSRR. Again like HSRProj, Boolean
operators are available. The wild card is an asterisk. There's no need to type in "and." That's the default
for this program. It's not case sensitive.
And the search engine offers suggestions for misspellings. And remember, from the main search page,
you can always click on more search tips and examples, as well as frequently asked questions. So now
here is a simple search. We're looking for tools about "patient reported outcomes." I've put the phrase in
quotes. Without the quotation marks, the search would look for "patient" AND "reported" AND
"outcomes." That would certainly include our topic, but could also produce some false hits. So here's the
search. That search returned 27 citations; 23 instruments and 4 datasets. You can see that by looking
on the left side of the screen. Record type shows us how many we pulled up, that we could get four in
the PHSR subset. And then there are results on the top terms that were related to the results that we
just pulled. Notice that there are PubMed buttons beside the titles. Using these buttons, you can look
directly at PubMed citations without going to the full record. Let's also look at these results for a moment
about where they came from.
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Making the Most of Research Resources for Health Services Research: HSRProj and HSRR
August 2014
The first is an instrument from the University of Oxford. The second is an instrument from Fiserv, a
private company. The third is the National Health Service PROMIS results. The fourth is Patient
Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System from NIH. Underneath that is PROMIS. It's the
instrument from NIH. So you can see something of the breadth of results that are available here. So let's
click on one of these. Here is the PROMIS record. Note the full title, a URL to the record, a note that this
is a dataset from the NIH, a short purpose statement, a longer description, a note about the population,
a link to PubMed, and keywords. And just a note, these keywords generally, but not always, MeSH. So
now let's click on the title URL. And here is the Home Page for PROMIS. PROMIS is the Patient
Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System. This is an NIH-funded endeavor that has
brought together the leading PRO and clinical investigators to develop a system to measure PROs
efficiently in a wide range of people with chronic diseases and a variety of demographic characteristics.
This is part of the NIH goal to develop systems to support NIH-funded research across all institutions
and centers. PROMIS measures cover physical, mental, and social health and can be used across
chronic conditions. This PROMIS record is a little unusual for HSRR. Generally, a title link will take you
directly to the dataset or instrument. But in this instance, since the PROMIS system has so much to offer
researchers and the link is to the overarching system, especially since links to the various components
are so evident here.
So let's go back to our record again. And this time, let's look at the PubMed strategy. And here are the
first 5 of 160 citations that were returned by searching for Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement
Information System. Let's take a second to look at these. The very first one is a Prepub for September
2014. The second is also a Prepub. The third is from a nursing journal. So you can see that a wide
variety of journals and research topics are being covered in the PROMIS system. And I want to
emphasize that that PubMed link is just a link. It's running a new search every time you click on it. So
the newest information is always available. Now let's look at manipulating our results. Here I have
clicked "select all on this page." Notice over near the Action box, I can also opt to select all 27 instead of
just the first 20. And now, just as in HSRProj, clicking my Action box gives me the option to e-mail these
results or to export them in HTML, Text or XML, just like in HSRProj. So here's that results page again.
Now let's look at the 23 instruments and the 4 datasets. Let's focus on the datasets. And here are the
four data sets on patient reported outcomes.
And they are four really good datasets. The first is from the National Health Service on their PROMs
system. The second is the NIH PROMIS system. The third is from the World Health Organization. And
the fourth is from CMS, all trusted sources for data. So now I'm going to do some limits from our search
results. I've selected just the instruments, the 23 instruments. And then I've clicked on "Medical
Outcomes Study." This was one of the top results in our full pool of results. And here are the five. Let's
look at one record. Here is the sleep scale. This is one of the shortest records you'll find in HSRR
because it's part of a big set of results. Notice the "related titles" link that shows you all the different
versions available. This "related titles" group also gives you a hint that this is a huge study with lots of
components. So let's look at a software record. As I mentioned, there are currently 58 software records
in HSRR. Here is an example of a record related to a particular piece of software, Epi Info. Notice that
Epi Info is part of the Public Health Services Research subset.
And of course there's a PubMed Search button. You can also browse for information on HSRR. You can
look by title in the dataset software instruments, the same by source. Right now let's look at the Public
Health Systems Research subset. And here are the first 25 of the 243 PHSR records currently in HSRR.
And as you scan through these titles, you can see that some of them are from public health workforce;
some from local public health departments; some are state-level data; some are National Quality
Indicators. The area resource file appears here. And there is a record from Australia. So HSRR is a
really good starting point when you're looking for tools. But there are lots of other good places to look.
Data.gov is the portal for Federal, state and local data, tools, and resources that will help conduct
research, build apps, design data visualizations, and lots of other things. Topics go far beyond health to
include climate, education, public safety, and lots of other things.
The screen that you're seeing now is the health topic for Data.gov. There is also a dedicated portal for
health data. This site, HealthData.gov, is dedicated to making high-value health data more accessible to
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August 2014
entrepreneurs, researchers, and policymakers in the hopes of making better health outcomes for all.
The goal is to "liberate" data to bring innovations to our health care system. The Health Indicators
Warehouse is a source for national, state and community health indicators. Access to high-quality data
improves understanding of a community's health status and determinants, and facilitates the
prioritization of interventions. The Health Indicators Warehouse provides a single, user-friendly source
for national, state, and community health indicators; meets needs of multiple population health
initiatives; facilitates harmonization of indicators across initiatives; links indicators with evidence-based
interventions; and serves as the data hub for the HHS Community Health Data Initiative, a flagship HHS
open government initiative to release data, encourage innovative application development, and catalyze
change to improve community health. And don't forget Public Health Partners. PHPartners has a page
dedicated to Health Data Tools and Statistics.
So what is the future for HSRR? We are exploring how HSRR descriptions of standardized validated
assessment instruments could be enhanced to support current efforts, promoting use of common data
elements in health services research and care delivery. For example, records could highlight questions
from validated instruments. These could be used to help identify common data elements and variables
across instruments. Including key questions in such records could also be used to link users to the
published research foundation of common data elements and variables. We need more PubMed links. A
lot of the older records don't have PubMed links. Those are being added. Also at one time when a
record was added, if the search was run and there were no results, no link was added so that users
would not be frustrated. Now a search is attached to every record in order to catch citations as they are
added to PubMed.
A long-time goal has been to link HSRProj and HSRR records internally. Since the HSRR was created,
in part, to work with HSRProj, this is a logical next step. And perhaps we need new subsets, question
bank materials, PROs, special groups or topics, GIS and mapping citations. What else would you like to
see? What would help you? Remember, it's easy for you to suggest something to be added. I've
enjoyed sharing this resource with you today. We've got time for a few questions now. If you have
comments or questions that you'd prefer to share directly with me, please use this e-mail address.
Thanks for your time and attention.
Thank you so much, Lynn and Patricia, for providing expertise in research resources for HSR. To
access the resources discussed in the seminar, please visit nom.nah.gov/nichsr. This website includes
more information on HSRProj, as well as links to helpful online databases and training opportunities. I
would also encourage you to visit AcademyHealth's website at academyhealth.org/researchresources.
There you will find additional free resources; an overview of the HSRProj and HSRR; links to both
databases; as well as other training materials. Also visit hsrmethods.org, a resource that provides
information on key online research tools; how to search for HSR projects; links to recent journal articles;
and grant opportunities. Another important resource for the field of eGEMs, a publication of the AHRQfunded EDM Forum. eGEMs is an open access journal focusing on using electronic health data to
advance research in quality improvement, with the overall goal of improving patient and community
outcomes. For more information on eGEMS, please visit repository.academyhealth.org/egems.
Before we get started on the Q&A portion, I would like to request that participants complete a brief
evaluation of the seminar. As mentioned, we are prepared to provide continuing education credit for
librarians who complete the evaluation. We appreciate your feedback and comments, which will help us
plan for future events. The evaluation is available on the seminar webpage beneath this recording. We
have received a number of questions on HSRProj and HSRR, which I will now pose to Lynn and Pat.
For HSRProj, the first question is: "What are the differences between HSRProj and HSRR?"
Hi, this is Lynn; I'll take this one. HSRProj and HSRR are created to work together to support the
research needs of this community. So HSRProj is where you will go to find out what research is
happening, who is doing it, who is funding it, information about how they're doing it. And as you read
those abstracts, you'll see that databases instrument software are mentioned. You can then go to HSRR
to find those tools so that you can use them in your own research.
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Academy Health
Making the Most of Research Resources for Health Services Research: HSRProj and HSRR
August 2014
Great, thank you. The second question is: "Have you considered linking HSRProj records to the
published product?" I'll take that; this is Pat. We have considered that. But first one needs to approach
this from the perspective that much of the data that is in HSRProj when it's initially added is not
published, The point of the database is to connect you with projects that are in progress. And therefore,
publication is not yet possible because the research is still going on.
However, it is possible that after a project is done, there will be a publication on it. And we are looking
into the possibility of perhaps linking to PubMed and grey literature items to older materials that are
perhaps in the five-year-old range to support the connection between the original project design and
what was eventually published from the research.
Great, thank you, Pat. The third question received is: "Are there more HSRProj record elements
available than shown?" Hi, this is Pat again. When you pull up an HSRProj record, you are seeing all of
the fields that were available for that particular project. Different records will show different results.
Rather than show you a blank field, if a field was empty, it's not displayed. So you might perhaps go into
one of the older records and not see an abstract. That's because no abstract was supplied by the
performing agency. In some instances, you'll go into a newer record. And you will see the funding
information, which you don't see in older records. That's because that information was added in the
more recent records but was not necessarily added in the older records. So when you pull up an
HSRProj record, you are seeing the full record for that particular research project.
Thank you, Pat. The next question is: "Could you explain how HSRProj records are obtained for
inclusion in HSRProj?" And I can actually answer this one. For this effort, AcademyHealth staff actively
solicited HSSR projects from a list of over 240 funding organizations. We establish and maintain
relationships with these organizations and contact them according to their contact or grant cycle. We
also attend conferences and meetings to identify new researchers and funding organizations that may
be conducting or funding HSR to help identify new outreach efforts. Our colleagues at the University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill, query relevant online databases for relevant projects. This includes the NHR
Reporter and the AHRQ Gold database, among others.
The next question that we've received is for HSRR. "Can the datasets be attached to GIS applications
for drafting or table making?" Hi, this is Lynn. Well, of course that's going to depend on the dataset
instrument that you're looking at. You search HSRR. And if you search for GIS or mapping, you'll find
over 60 results for different pieces of software and different datasets that are available. You would then
go directly to the dataset to find out what the downloading requirements are. But it is a good place to
look for things, especially software, about doing mapping and GIS kinds of things. There are lots of
those available through HSRR.
Thank you, Lynn. The second question is: "What is the scope for HSRR? Could it be used to answer
servicing questions?" Oh, absolutely -- the scope is to reflect what researchers in the field are using and
doing and need. So there is a wide, wide, wide range of kinds of things that are in there. For servicing
things, a good place to start would be PHSR subset because that's aimed specifically at public health.
So it's reporting and supporting public health departments and statewide initiatives. But also the larger
HSRR has a lot of information about manpower, about facilities, about state health policy kinds of things.
So, yes, absolutely, it's a good place to look for things for and about service.
Great, thank you. The next question is: "How often is HSRR updated?" Well, the links are checked out
once a week. And then new things are added as they come to my attention. There are routine things,
like monitoring the updates to HSRProj and monitoring things that come in, in journals and blogs and
things like that. And then people make suggestions. People go to meetings and bring back lists of
questionnaires. And those things are added as they come to my attention. Thank you. Another question
is: "Is it possible to download multiple files from HSRR at a time?" Absolutely, the download works just
like it does in HSRProj. You select the results you want, and then you can e-mail them or retrieve them
as Text, XML or HTML, just like HSRProj. They look very much alike. So if you're comfortable with one,
you'll be comfortable in the other.
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Academy Health
Making the Most of Research Resources for Health Services Research: HSRProj and HSRR
August 2014
Perfect, thank you. A few additional questions on HSRProj. The first one is: "What is unique about
HSRProj? And why would users use this database as opposed to others?" This is Pat. There are some
other databases that do provide access to grant information, grants that are in progress. For example,
Robert Wood Johnson has their own unique grant archive. NIH Reporter tells you what's going on in
grants within the National Institutes of Health. But HSRProj covers more than just the National Institutes
of Health or Robert Wood Johnson. It includes those, as well as grants from a number of private and
public funders, from other Federal agencies, from other divisions from other countries. So it provides the
user with one-stop shopping. You don't have to go from database to database. You don't have to know
which Federal agency is being included in a particular Federal website. HSRProj covers it all. Now, it is
limited to health services research. But it covers a huge amount of material and a great deal of grants
covering so many different agencies from so many different areas in the country and in the world.
Thank you. The last question we've received is: "How should someone searching for HSR think about
using HSRProj and ClinicalTrials.gov?" This is Pat again. ClinicalTrials.gov is really concerned with
clinical information. So while there is overlap between HSRProj and Clinical Trials, ClinicalTrials.gov is
going to give you much more of the care aspect of health care. It is going to be much more in the
medical clinical area. Whereas HSRProj is going to concentrate more on things that are of interest to
health services research, specifically areas of economics, cost, access to health care, plus disparities.
Great, thank you.
This concludes the seminar for today. I would like to thank Lynn and Pat for the informative
presentations on HSRProj and HSRR. If you have any questions about the research resources we
talked about today, please feel free to send an e-mail to HSRProj@academyhealth.org. Thank you
again for joining us today. We hope you found the seminar informative and useful in your work. Thank
you.
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