The Health Information Research Unit (HIRU) at McMaster University conducts research in the field of health information science and is dedicated to the generation of new knowledge about the nature of health and clinical information problems, the development of new information resources to support evidence-based health care, and the evaluation of various innovations for overcoming health care information problems. HIRU is the base for several provincial, national and international projects, including Cancer Care Ontario's Program in Evidence-based Care, the Health Evidence Application and Linkage Network (funded by the Network of Centres of Excellence Program in Canada), a US Agency for Health Care Policy and Research-funded Evidence-Based Practice Centre, the Canadian Cochrane Centre, and the editorial office for 5 international publications, ACP Journal Club (ACPJC), Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), Evidence-Based Nursing (EBN), Evidence-Based Mental Health (EBMH) and Best Evidence (BE). 

HIRU's activities reflect a balance of development of innovations and resources to support evidence-based care, and evaluation of new and existing potential remedies to enhance decision-making by patients, practitioners, managers, and policy makers. Thus, HIRU research involves retrieval, evaluation and summarization of health care research evidence, formulation of evidence-based policy, and dissemination and application of health care evidence. Examples of projects include surveys of consumers and practitioners to determine use of evidence and such resources as the internet, development and testing of computerized decision support systems, and providing and testing the effects of access to evidence-based information resources in clinical settings.