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Grants and Funding: Extramural Programs (EP)

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Dr. Ida Sim – PECASE Recipient 1999

Electronic Knowledge Based Publication of Randomized Trials (R01-LM-006780)

Project Information

In 1999, Dr. Ida Sim, M.D., Ph.D., won a PECASE award for leading cutting edge informatics research in randomized clinical trials (RCT). With her first NLM-funded grant, Dr. Sim, who is now an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, successfully demonstrated the feasibility of a computer-based knowledge management system for clinical trials (called the Trial Bank Project). The Trial Bank Project was developed to be openly accessible all over the world and provided multiple applications for reviewers, clinicians, and journal editors. The tool was designed to capture all the details of trial design, execution, and results needed to critically appraise a trial or to apply it to clinical care. Not only was trial-bank publishing a most innovative idea at a time when Web-based computer research was just beginning, but its fledgling designer was able to persuade two prestigious medical journals (JAMA and the Annals of Internal Medicine), to experiment with the concept. Dr. Sim laid the groundwork for a critical informatics infrastructure aimed at improving the management, dissemination, and use of valuable RCT information. Later, by integrating the trial bank with decision support tools, she ensured that her research efforts would have the most impact on clinical practice.

Photo of Dr. Ida Sim

Dr. Ida Sim

Quotes

What is your best career advice to young investigators?

Some investigators seek primarily to expand knowledge within current paradigms, while other investigators tend towards seeking new paradigms. The advance of science requires both types of investigators, but their skill sets are different. Do some introspection on your own strengths and weaknesses and on your attitudes and comfort level towards working within or defining new paradigms. Then be true to your tendency. Over the course of your career, your grant proposals will become a cumulative expression of your desired intellectual contribution. Don't submit or participate in a proposal just because it's available or doable, but be selective for proposals that build on each other to broadly expand the current paradigm or proposals that build towards defining and showing the value of a new paradigm. The process of science and of getting funded is difficult, but I believe that you will have greater success and greater career satisfaction if you explicitly consider (and continually readjust) the arc of your scientific contributions over time.

Publications

Publications related to this grant and listed in PubMed include:

Berlin A, Sorani M, Sim I. A taxonomic description of computer-based clinical decision support systems. J Biomed Inform. 2006 Dec;39(6):656-67. Epub 2006 Jan 9. PubMed PMID: 16442854.

Berlin A, Sorani M, Sim I. Characteristics of outpatient clinical decision support systems: a taxonomic description. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2004;107(Pt1):578-81. PubMed PMID: 15360878.

de Bruijn B, Carini S, Kiritchenko S, Martin J, Sim I. Automated information extraction of key trial design elements from clinical trial publications. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2008 Nov 6:141-5. PubMed PMID: 18999067; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2655966.

Kiritchenko S, de Bruijn B, Carini S, Martin J, Sim I. ExaCT: automatic extraction of clinical trial characteristics from journal publications. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2010 Sep 28;10:56. PubMed PMID: 20920176; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2954855.

Lee K, Bacchetti P, Sim I. Publication of clinical trials supporting successful new drug applications: a literature analysis. PLoS Med. 2008 Sep 23;5(9):e191. PubMed PMID: 18816163; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2553819.

Sim I, Carini S, Olasov B, Jeng S. Trial bank publishing: phase I results. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2004;107(Pt 2):1476-80. PubMed PMID: 15361060.

Sim I, Cummings SR. A new framework for describing and quantifying the gap between proof and practice. Med Care. 2003 Aug;41(8):874-81. PubMed PMID: 12886168.

Sim I, Gorman P, Greenes RA, Haynes RB, Kaplan B, Lehmann H, Tang PC.Clinical decision support systems for the practice of evidence-based medicine. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2001 Nov-Dec;8(6):527-34. PubMed PMID: 11687560; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC130063.

Sim I, Olasov B, Carini S. An ontology of randomized controlled trials for evidence-based practice: content specification and evaluation using the competency decomposition method. J Biomed Inform. 2004 Apr;37(2):108-19. PubMed PMID: 15120657.

Sim I, Owens DK, Lavori PW, Rennels GD. Electronic trial banks: a complementary method for reporting randomized trials. Med Decis Making. 2000 Oct-Dec;20(4):440-50. PubMed PMID: 11059477.

Sim I, Sanders GD, McDonald KM. Evidence-based practice for mere mortals: the role of informatics and health services research. J Gen Intern Med. 2002 Apr;17(4):302-8. Review. PubMed PMID: 11972727; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC1495037.

Last Reviewed: August 27, 2014