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Evidence Based Medicine: Pre-Appraised Resources

Choosing Wisely

Choosing Wisely, an initiative from the ABIM Foundation, invites reputable physician organizations to submit a list of up to 10 evidence-based recommendations for appropriate use of tests and procedures and along with the evidence to support the recommendations. The goal of the initiative is to advance a national dialog on avoiding wasteful or unnecessary medical tests.

About Pre-Appraised Resources

Pre-appraised evidence resources contain articles which feature a summary, critical appraisal, and commentary on an original research article. When used efficiently, pre-appraised information resources can save valuable time, since the evidence identified through these resources has already been submitted to a rigorous critical appraisal process. Pre-appraised resources offer several benefits:

  1. They have a filtering and selection process so that the original research articles selected to be appraised tend to be higher quality studies which may have practice changing implications.1,2  They effectively separate the wheat from the chaff for their readers.
  2. They critically appraise the identified studies to call out the methodological strengths and weaknesses of the study, helping readers understand limitations in study design and generalizability.
  3. They include a commentary which puts the study being appraised in the context of the wider body of literature on the topic.

For more information about how pre-appraised resources select and appraise evidence, see the Preappraised Research section of Users' Guides to the Medical Literature: A Manual for Evidence-Based Clinical Practice, Chapter 5. Finding Current Best Evidence.


1. DiCenso A, Bayley L, Haynes RB. Accessing pre-appraised evidence: fine-tuning the 5S model into a 6S model.

2. Guyatt G, Rennie D, Meade M, Cook D. Users’ guides to the medical literature: a manual for evidence-based clinical practice. McGraw-Hill Education / Medical, 2015.

Pre-Appraised Resources