On 2017 Mar 15, Michelle Fiander commented:

Reproducibility and transparent reporting are among the hallmarks of a methodologically sound systematic review. One aspect of reproducibility and sound reporting (per PRISMA) is the presentation of at least one database search strategy. In this review, one strategy (for OVID Medline) is reported and the authors say the strategy was written by an "expert librarian" whose initials are provided--but who is not an author on the review. I mention this because the strategy looks more like a work in progress than an "expert" or finished product.

There are quite a few problems with the Medline search strategy in terms of its logic, search terms, syntax and organization, and the outcome is that the strategy does not identify 19 of the 31 included studies. There are a number of reasons for this, the main one of which is the absence of a reasonable set of synonyms for the concept of 'electronic syndromic surveillance. It is always difficult to develop search strategies for concepts not represented by consistent keywords or controlled vocabulary (such as MeSH), but the goal of an expert searcher is to tease out the concept after becoming familiar with the subject matter by examining and reading few relevant discussions/studies and or checking definitions. This does not appear to have happened for this review,and it begs the question as to how the evidence base for this review was assembled, and if it was objective or biased.

On 2017 Mar 15, Michelle Fiander commented:

Reproducibility and transparent reporting are among the hallmarks of a methodologically sound systematic review. One aspect of reproducibility and sound reporting (per PRISMA) is the presentation of at least one database search strategy. In this review, one strategy (for OVID Medline) is reported and the authors say the strategy was written by an "expert librarian" whose initials are provided--but who is not an author on the review. I mention this because the strategy looks more like a work in progress than an "expert" or finished product.

There are quite a few problems with the Medline search strategy in terms of its logic, search terms, syntax and organization, and the outcome is that the strategy does not identify 19 of the 31 included studies. There are a number of reasons for this, the main one of which is the absence of a reasonable set of synonyms for the concept of 'electronic syndromic surveillance. It is always difficult to develop search strategies for concepts not represented by consistent keywords or controlled vocabulary (such as MeSH), but the goal of an expert searcher is to tease out the concept after becoming familiar with the subject matter by examining and reading few relevant discussions/studies and or checking definitions. This does not appear to have happened for this review,and it begs the question as to how the evidence base for this review was assembled, and if it was objective or biased.