The Electronic Data Methods (EDM) Forum was established in 2010 as a cooperative agreement with AHRQ to advance the national dialogue on the use of electronic health data for research and quality improvement. The EDM Forum facilitated learning and collaboration among researchers and other key stakeholders who generated the data, methods, and the knowledge needed to build learning health systems that will improve patient care and outcomes.
Primary Aims
The EDM Forum advanced the knowledge in four domains: analytic methods, clinical informatics, governance, and building the learning health system. It had a special interest in ensuring continued relevance, scalability, and sustainability of electronic data networks and learning health systems. Its three aims were to:
- Engage and convene a broad and diverse group of experts and relevant stakeholders.
- Conduct collaborative methods projects.
- Create and disseminate timely, diverse, high-quality, and useful products.
Major Activities
The EDM Forum worked on the following activities while funded by AHRQ:
- Developed analytic products that synthesized challenges and innovations, including: papers, issue briefs, reports, needs assessments, and literature reviews;
- Facilitated opportunities for research initiatives and stakeholder groups to collaborate with one another;
- Built a knowledge base of practical methods, tools, innovations, and lessons learned from those working at the frontlines of healthcare and informatics, and disseminated those through its free-access, electronic journal – eGEMs;
- Developed a patient-entered portable consent project, leading to an e-consent module that is present in all five applications of Apple’s ResearchKit;
- Disseminated current research and news via in-person and virtual meetings and presentations, the EDM Forum Monthly Update e-newsletter, and through a knowledge repository accessed through its Web site: www.edm-forum.org.
Its activities were guided by a national steering committee chaired by Dr. Ned Calonge, President and CEO of the Colorado Trust, and co-chaired by Dr. Suzanne Bakken, Professor, Columbia University, New York. The principal investigator of the first phase of the EDM Forum was Dr. Erin Holve, Senior Director at AcademyHealth, Washington D.C. The second phase of the project was led by Dr. Margaret Edmunds, Vice President, Evidence Generation and Translation at AcademyHealth, Washington D.C.