Pharmacogenomics information-seeking behavior and the openinfobutton solution

Lack of information is a serious concern for clinicians. Information resources can address this problem, leading to improvements in decision making and patient outcomes. Genomics is an information-rich domain where searching for information can be complex. For example, most physicians agree that pharmacogenomics can be used to improve the quality of care, and there is evidence that many patients harbor actionable pharmacogenomic variation. However, surveys have shown that physicians feel their knowledge of pharmacogenomics to be inadequate. This represents an information need. A natural approach to meet this need is to provide context-aware access to the precise information needed. The Health Level 7 Context-Aware Knowledge Retrieval Standard, a.k.a the Infobutton, offers a modality to deliver context-aware knowledge into electronic health record (EHR) systems. OpenInfobutton is a reference implementation of this standard that offers an open-source instantiation. In this thesis, we aimed to provide insight into pharmacogenomics information needs and an automated mechanism for addressing these needs. Such work can aid the design of tools that support clinical decisions in genomics.