Database guide last
updated June 11, 2009

Copyright 2009,
Wolters Kluwer Health

Produced by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), the Health Technology Assessment database brings together details on ongoing health technology assessments (studies of the medical, social, ethical, and economic implications of healthcare interventions).

HTA is produced in collaboration with the INAHTA Secretariat, based at SBU, Sweden. The database contains records of ongoing projects being conducted by members of INAHTA as well as publications reporting completed technology assessments carried out by INAHTA members and other health technology assessment organizations.

The abstracts in the database are descriptive rather than analytical and do not provide critical appraisals of the reports, as the reports have not been evaluated by reviewers from the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination.

Many different types of research are included in the HTA database, including systematic reviews and ongoing and completed research based on trials, questionnaires and economic evaluations. In some cases there will be an overlap with systematic reviews in the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effect (DARE) database and economic evaluations in the National Health Service Economic Evaluation (NHS EED) database.

More information on this database is available from the CRD: http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/hfaq.htm or http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/CRDWeb/

The limit of databases that you can select for a multifile search session is based upon database segments rather than actual databases. The Ovid multifile segment limit is set at 120 to avoid impacting your search sessions. This database includes 1 segment.

This database is updated online quarterly.

The Text Word (TW) field is ideal for broad retrieval of an author's specialized terminology. Searches in this field are conducted simultaneously in the Title (TI), Keyword (KW), and Full Text (TX) fields.

If you believe that your search word or phrase has been used very frequently in the literature (e.g. "blood pressure,") you may wish to focus the results more closely by using the Title (TI) or Subject Headings (SH) fields, or by using one of the limits to restrict the results of your search.

Quotation marks can be used to retrieve records that contain literal strings, when the string includes special characters, such as a forward slash (/).

Quotation marks can also be used to retrieve records that contain numbers that may otherwise be confused for earlier searches. In the example, a search for 3.vo would limit the string from your third search in your search history to the volume field. By including the number in quotation marks, the search will retrieve documents with a 3 in the volume number.

If you are searching for a multi-file of ebmz you can put in any or all the segments that make up ebmz. For example, command “dog.ti use coch,acp,dare,cca,cctr,clcmr,clhta,cleed" to include any or all segments of ebmz.

Therefore a search: at risk for diabetes.ti will also find: at risk of diabetes. The distance of one word in between is kept, but the stopword "for" is ignored.

A limit by Age Group restricts retrieval by any of the age groups indexed in the database. Since only human age groups are indexed, this limit will also restrict retrieval to human subjects.

If you choose this option you will be presented with a list of age groups from which to select.

A limit to Animals restricts retrieval to documents which are primarily about animal subjects.  It retains articles about both human and animal subjects.

Consider also the Limit to Animal Type, which will allow you to select from a list of common experimental research animals.

A limit by Animal Type restricts retrieval to any of the basic animal types.

If you choose this option you will be presented with a short alphabetical list of some common research animal types from which to select.

Consider also the Limit to Animal, which restricts retrieval to documents which are about any animal subject.

Indexers apply check tags to articles to identify research categories. Categories include research subjects (such as female or adult). If you choose this option you will be presented with a list of categories from which to select.

A limit to English will restrict retrieval to articles which are written in the English language. Foreign language articles with English abstracts will be eliminated by a limit to English.

A limit to Female restricts retrieval to documents which are about females, either human or animal.

A limit to Language restricts retrieval to any of the languages indexed in the database.

If you choose this option you will be presented with an alphabetical list of languages from which to select.

A limit to Local Holdings restricts retrieval to documents from journals held in your local library or library system.

If your System Administrator has created any special messages about a journal's availability, this message will display with the document in the Local Holdings (LH) field.

A limit to Male restricts retrieval to documents which are about males, either human or animal.

A limit to New Reviews restricts retrieval to documents which have been added to the database since the last update.

A limit by Publication Type restricts retrieval by publication types including classifications such as:

You can restrict retrieval to any of the years covered by this database.

If you choose this option you will be prompted to enter the desired year; the format is 4 digits: "1989" or a range: "1994-1995".

A limit to Review Articles restricts retrieval to articles which are reviews of a subject.

The following Search Tool is available for this database. For specific information on using this tool, refer to the OvidSP Online Help linked below.

• Tree
• Permuted Index
• Scope Notes
• Explode
• Subheadings

Accession Number
  HTA-31995000000 
Authors
  Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research.
Title
  Gallstone therapies (Structured abstract)
Source
  Health Technology Assessment Database. 2009 Issue 2, John Wiley & Sons,
  Ltd. Chichester, UK. Division: ST.
Reviewed Source
  Original article: Marshall, D. Gallstone therapies. Ottawa: Canadian
  Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment/Office Canadien
  de Coordination de l'Evaluation des Technologues de la Sante (CCOHTA).
  35p. 1991.
Reviewed Article Year of Publication
  1991
Address for Correspondence
  600-865 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8 Canada.
  Tel: +1 613 226 2553, Fax: +1 613 226 5392;
MeSH Subject Headings
  Cholecystectomy Cholecystectomy, Laparoscopic Cholelithiasis
  Laparoscopy Lithotripsy
Record Status
  This is a publication undertaken by a member of INAHTA. For further
  information please contact the agency using the contact details in 
  the Correspondence Address field.
Language
  English, French
Summary Language
  English
Year of Publication
  2009
Database Entry Date
  1991
Digital Object Identifier
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/14651858
Study Information
  Authors' objectives: 
  Comparison of open cholecystectomy, laparoscopic cholecystectomy and
  gallstone lithotripsy.
  Type of intervention: Treatment 
  Searching: Published literature; TA agency documents; 
  hospital-specific costs; government physician payment schedules;
  manufacturers' data. 
  Results:
  a) No controlled trials of laparoscopic cholecystectomy comparing it
  with surgical cholecystectomy have been completed. However, it is
  being adopted at a rapid rate in Canadian hospitals; b) Total
  treatment costs for the three therapies per case are $3437 (open),
  $2605 (lap.) and $1631 (lithotripsy). This does not include costs
  associated with loss of work, and costs due to complications; c) When
  variables e.g. length of stay, hospital room rates, patient
  throughput, length of adjunct drug therapy, number of lithotripsy
  sessions, etc. are changed, the three per-case costs range from
  $2661 to $5825 (open), $2497 to $3236 (lap.) and $1553 to $7475
  (lithotripsy); d) There is no evidence that use of a laser improves
  outcomes for laparoscopic cholecystectomy; e) Training of surgeons in
  the laparoscopic procedure may not be adequate. 
  Index terms: 
ISSN
  1465-1858
URL for Original Research
  https://www.ccohta.ca/
Copyright
  Copyright (C) 2009 Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology
  Assessment(CCOHTA). Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Accession Number
  HTA-31995000001 
Authors
  Comis, J.
Title
  Reuse of single-use cardiac catheters (Structured abstract)
Source
  Health Technology Assessment Database. 2009 Issue 2, John Wiley 
  & Sons, Ltd. Chichester, UK. Division: ST.
Reviewed Source
  Original article: Comis, J. Reuse of single-use cardiac catheters.
  Ottawa: Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology
  Assessment/Office Canadien de Coordination de l'Evaluation des
  Technologues de la Sante (CCOHTA). 36p. 1991.
Reviewed Article Year of Publication
  1991
Address of Correspondence
  600-865 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8 Canada.
  Tel: +1 613 226 2553, Fax: +1 613 226 5392;
MeSH Subject Headings
  Data Collection
  Disposable Equipment / ut [Utilization]
  Equipment and Supplies, Hospital
  Equipment Safety
  Heart Catheterization / is [Instrumentation]
Record Status
  This is a publication undertaken by a member of INAHTA. For further
  information please contact the agency using the contact details in the
  Correspondence Address field.
Language
  English, French
Summary Language
  English
Year of Publication
  2009
Database Entry Date
  1991
Digital Object Identifier
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/14651858
Study Design
  Review
Study Information
  Authors' objectives:
  To address four issues related to the re-use of diagnostic cardiac
  catheters and angiography cardiac catheters: risk of infection,
  functional effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and liability; request
  from provincial governments.
  Type of intervention:
  Medical devices 
  Searching: 
  Published literature; government agency documents; cardiac
  catheterization laboratory staff in hospitals. 
  Results:
  a) The possible increased risk of infection with re-use is a
  concern; however, there is no conclusive evidence that there is no
  increased risk; b) Hospitals do not typically have guidelines as to
  the number of times a catheter can be reused; c) Hospitals that reuse
  catheters expect volumes of procedures to decrease if they stopped
  re-using; d) One hospital has estimated an annual saving of $100,000
  if catheters are re-used 10 times; e) Patients are not informed if a
  used catheter is to be used on them. It is possible that this
  breaches the standard of care according to Canadian law. Authors'
  conclusions: Revising/reprocessing cardiac catheters has not been
  proven to be safe or unsafe. Since the primary motivation is economic,
  more hospitals are considering this practice. There still remain
  issues and questions that need to be addressed before re-use can be
  considered a safe practice. 
  Index terms: 
ISSN
  1465-1858
URL for Original Research
  https://www.ccohta.ca/
Copyright
  Copyright (C) 2009 Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology
  Assessment (CCOHTA). Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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The materials contained herein are proprietary to the publishers and/or individual copyright holders and may only be used by authorized users of the subscribing institutions for internal or personal research. Authorized users may

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