Table 1

POEMs Evaluation Study. A comparison of the accuracy and efficiency of askMEDLINE and Entrez PubMed in retrieving an exact match to cited references in POEMs in BMJ.

Search Step
askMEDLINE exact match retrieved/total questions (% total)
Entrez PubMed exact match retrieved/total questions (% total)

A. Match at first pass
59/95 (62.1)
13/95 (13.7)
B. Match after a related citation search
11/95 (11.6)
8/95 (8.4)
C. Match after question rephrase
2/95 (2.1)
0/95 (0)
Total exact match after A, B, and C
75.8%
22.1
No match after A, B, and C, but relevant articles retrieved
20/95 (21)
16/95 (16.8)
Overall efficiency
96.8%
38.9%
Citations retrieved, but not matched or relevant
3/95 (3.1)
6/95 (6.3)
No citations retrieved
0/95 (0)
52/95 (54.7)
Overall retrieval failure
3.1%
61%

Fontelo et al. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2005 5:5   doi:10.1186/1472-6947-5-5