We reviewed the articles retrieved from the various sources to determine whether to include them in the interactive database. A one-page screening review form that contained a series of categorization questions was created to track the articles. Two reviewers, each trained in the critical analysis of scientific literature, independently reviewed each study, and resolved disagreements by consensus. The principal investigator resolved any disagreements that remained unresolved after discussions among the reviewers.

The database includes evidence from articles with many different study designs. Our initial search was unrestricted by study design. We identified review articles and further classified these as systematic or non-systematic reviews. We classified other articles as descriptive if they primarily described the workings or implementation of an HIT system and further classified these as qualitative or quantitative, depending on the presentation of numerical values for things like numbers of tests ordered, costs of implementation, etc. A second category of studies we classified as "hypothesis testing" by which we meant that a study question was assessed by comparing data between groups or across time periods and using statistical test to assess differences. Hypothesis testing studies were further classified as containing an intervention with a concurrent comparison group which included randomized and non-randomized controlled trials and controlled before-after studies; and studies with an intervention but without a concurrent comparison group; which included pre-post studies, time series studies with more than two measurement points, and studies that used a historical control group. Additional classifications of hypothesis studies testing included studies without an intervention which were cross-sectional in nature, and other hypothesis testing studies. Lastly, we classified studies as a "predictive analysis" if they used modeling techniques to predict what might happen with an HIT implementation rather than what has happened with an HIT implementation. Predictive analyses include cost effectiveness and cost benefit analyses, and typically use data from multiple studies and are dependent upon several assumptions, some of which are not always explicitly stated. Articles that were classified as systematic reviews or meta-analyses, hypothesis testing or predictive analyses had structured abstracts created and included in this interactive database.