TY - EJOU
AU - Knadler, Joseph J.
AU - Penny, Daniel J.
AU - Harris, Tyler H.
AU - Webb, Gary D.
AU - Cabrera, Antonio G.
AU - Kyle, William B.
TI - Strength in numbers: Crowdsourcing the most relevant literature in pediatric cardiology
T2 - Congenital Heart Disease
PY - 2018
VL - 13
IS - 5
SN - 1747-0803
AB - Objective: The growing body of medical literature in pediatric cardiology has made it
increasingly difficult for individual providers to stay abreast of the most current,
meaningful articles to help guide practice. Crowdsourcing represents a collaborative
process of obtaining information from a large group of individuals, typically from an
online or web‐based community, and could serve a potential mechanism to pool indi‐
vidual efforts to combat this issue. This study aimed to utilize crowdsourcing as a
novel way to generate a list of the most relevant, current publications in congenital
heart disease, utilizing input from an international group of professionals in the field
of pediatric cardiology.
Design and Setting: All members of the PediHeartNet Google group, an international
email distribution list of medical professionals with an interest in pediatric cardiology,
were queried in 2017 to submit literature that they considered to be most relevant to
their current practice. A Google Form submission platform was used. The articles
were evaluated by a multi‐institutional panel of four experts in pediatric cardiology
using the Delphi method via an electronic evaluation form until a consensus was
reached regarding whether the article merited inclusion in the final list.
Results: In total, 260 articles were submitted by members of the PediHeartNet
Google group. Expert review using the Delphi method resulted in a list of 108 arti‐
cles. The final collection of articles was published on a publicly available educational
website.
Conclusions: Crowdsourcing represents a novel approach for generating a high‐yield,
comprehensive, yet practical list of the most relevant recent publications in pediatric
cardiology. The same techniques could be easily applied to any medical subspecialty.
By enlisting the input of frontline providers, the value and relevance of such a list will
be significant. A web‐based platform for publication of the list allows for real‐time
updates to ensure continued relevance.
KW - crowdsourcing
KW - medical education
KW - pediatric cardiology
DO - 10.1111/chd.12669