A new resource from AHRQ’s Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement (CEPI) makes it easier for researchers and clinicians to search, find and use information from the agency’s evidence-based resources and repositories. The CEPI Evidence Discovery and Retrieval (CEDAR) application programming interface allows health information technology developers to build platforms that can integrate AHRQ’s research findings into their systems, which can then be used by researchers, clinicians and patients. CEDAR provides access to repositories and programs including the Systematic Review Data Repository, the Effective Health Care Program, CDS Connect and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. CEDAR is free, publicly available and uses commonly used health information standards and technologies.
CEDAR Data
CEDAR contains data about PCOR repositories and the artifacts (e.g., systematic reviews, evidence reports, decision aids) that they contain. In addition to repository and artifact data, CEDAR also maintains a set of reference data including the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). The former is used internally by CEDAR to assign concepts to artifacts based on their keywords. The latter is provided to users of CEDAR to allow navigation of artifacts by topic.
The CEDAR API
Client applications can use the CEDAR Application Programming Interface (API) to find and retrieve information about the evidence that CEDAR indexes. The CEDAR API allows developers to expand existing systems or create new ones that interact with CEDAR and artifacts indexed by CEDAR. CEDAR was developed as an API rather than as a website to promote flexibility in the types of use cases that CEDAR supports as well as to allow CEDAR to be more easily integrated with existing systems.
A complete guide to using the CEDAR API can be found in the CEDAR API Getting Started Guide. Developers who want to experiment with the CEDAR API can leverage the CEDAR API Specification.
The CEDAR Demonstration User Interface
You can explore CEDAR by trying the CEDAR Demonstration User Interface developed to demonstrate CEDAR capabilities, serve as a guide to development of future context-specific client applications, and support pilot testing activities.
