The Prehospital Evidence-based Practice Program, nicknamed PEP, has become a cornerstone of evidence-based policy and curriculum development for paramedicine around the world. The latest research in prehospital medicine is evaluated by our team of volunteer appraisers, with dozens of new appraised articles being added to the database every month.

As body of prehospital literature grows and the number resources in the database has climbed, the current system has become outgrown; a good problem to have. The total number of appraised articles is now over 5,500 and finding was to organize the data has become increasingly challenging. Our users come to the PEP program with questions that entail specific populations, contexts and detail. We needed to develop a way to address the level of selection required by the users such that they can find evidence to best inform their needs.

With the insight from our end users and our Advisory Committee, the PEP Team created a vision for how the Program can reach the next level. As reported in a previous newsletter work on the new version of the database, PEP 2.0, is underway by the NSH IM/IT Team, Todd Damasiewicz and Robert LeCreux. But we still needed to figure out how to operationalize our dream. Like kismet we were approached by a Dalhousie Master’s of Information Management student, Sarah Aspen. She is a previous EMS provider with a background in computer science. She was familiar with PEP and wanted to team up with us for her summer practicum project to organize our data. This was music to our ears.

Sarah’s suggestions were strongly aligned with our vision and beyond. Together with the NSH IM/IT team she built new navigation pathways and an advanced search feature, central to the new system’s functionality. The advanced search will include the ability to find articles by nature of complaint, clinical presentation, intervention, clinical setting, outcome, and by Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) provided by the Medline database at NIH, allowing users many ways to navigate the article collection and zero in on the information they need. It will also allow for text searches of the article abstracts and supports the discovery of similar articles to aid users in discovering other relevant recommendations for their inquiry.

There is still more work to be done to before the complete PEP 2.0 vision is realized. We are still developing an improved user interface and how articles are distributed for appraisal. There are new appraisal methods and data points to share based on what the end user team has requested. Some new data highlights will include secondary outcomes, directness to the prehospital setting and separation of the studies of results on process outcomes and patient outcomes. One thing is for sure; you will still find our tried-and-true evidence summaries for your quick look at what the evidence recommends.

While PEP 2.0 moves from concept towards reality, the current system remains ready to meet the needs of clinicians, educators and guideline developers. We’re always looking for others who are passionate about evidence-based practice in EMS, so if you’d like to volunteer as an appraiser or would like more information, visit us on the web at https://emspep.cdha.nshealth.ca/, or connect with us at PEP@Dal.ca!