Commentary on EPC methods: an exploration of the use of text-mining software in systematic reviews

- The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Evidence-based Practice Center program recently published a methods white paper on the effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov web site which focused on a preliminary exploration of the use of text-mining in evidence synthesis.
- Text mining and related tools of automation are likely to augment rather than displace current literature retrieval and information extraction tools at the present time.
- The benefits of using a text-mining tool may be limited, in part, by the complexity and size of the relevant literature for a given topic (eg, text mining will likely work better for clinical indication-drug topics rather than complex health services topics).
- Key performance characteristics of text-mining tools should include reliability and transparency of computational methods, ease of use, and replicable results compatible with tools and workflows currently in use.