high reliablity in literature search work

This issue has been of interest to me for a while.

Sampson M, McGowan J, Cogo E, Grimshaw J, Moher D, Lefebvre C.
An evidence-based practice guideline for the peer review of electronic search strategies.
J Clin Epidemiol. 2009 Feb 18. [Epub ahead of print]

The notion of the reliability of the evidence identification process has been of keen interest ever since the Hopkins IRB incident where a good intentioned researcher missed important information that was a part of the failure spiral that resulted in the death of a healthy research volunteer.

This article discussed the use of peer review and checklists (used to improve reliability in other facets of medical work) as a potential improvement mechanism for the evidence retrieval process. I hope by the time I get through the article, others have too - and we can chat about it here.

I hope Sampson and colleagues provide us all with backgound that will lend support to some failure analysis work in this area. I've been talking that up and pitching it for years --- perhaps a door will open now for the study this gap requires to fully understand it.