Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that its embedded drug data solution, Medi-Span, is releasing a Controlled Substances File to help healthcare organisations meet mandatory US compliance requirements and to support quality assurance programs. The file data assists pharmacies, payers, EMR/CPOE vendors, and hospitals in adhering to prescribing, dispensing, and reporting requirements by identifying controlled substances schedules at the federal, state, and US territory level.

Along with federal regulations of controlled substances through the Drug Enforcement Agency, individual states and US territories may also have their own regulations that may differ from each other and those at the federal level. The Controlled Substances File assists organisations by providing support for compliance at all levels. It also identifies controlled substances by National Drug Code (NDC), enabling compatibility with a variety of databases and drug information systems.

EMR and CPOE vendors and self-programmers can employ the file to develop rules, applications, and reports based on the needs of their users, aiding in the creation of quality assurance programs around controlled substances.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that MedCentral Health System has selected its ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, software as its electronic order set solution and ProVation Care Plans, powered by Lippincott's Nursing Solutions as its evidence-based interdisciplinary care plans solution.

Headquartered in Mansfield, Ohio, MedCentral Health System is a non-profit health system serving more than 400,000 people in Richland and five surrounding counties. The health system is Joint Commission-certified and comprises two acute care hospitals, Mansfield and Shelby, with a combined total of 351 beds. In addition to a Level II Trauma Center and Level III Perinatal Department, MedCentral offers comprehensive neurological services, complete cardiac care at MedCentral HeartCare, walk-in medical care at MedCentral Rapid Response, and industrial health and safety at MedCentral WorkAble.

A central component of a healthcare organisation's care quality and core measures improvement strategy, ProVation Order Sets is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution. It integrates seamlessly into clinical processes to streamline delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon the award-winning clinician-designed ProVation platform, ProVation Order Sets also provides continuous updating of clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 700,000 users worldwide.

ProVation Care Plans offers evidence-based care plans developed in conjunction with Lippincott's Nursing Solutions and its network of hundreds of practicing clinicians. Combined with the dynamic ProVation software, it allows hospitals to define and maintain a custom care plans library while adhering to industry-accepted nursing and medical diagnoses, goals and interventions. Complete with a database of more than 270 evidence-based care plans, including reference links to online resources of current best practices, quality and safety measures, treatments, drug information and diagnostic tests, ProVation Care Plans allows hospitals to drive clinical consensus on standards of care and extend the reach of evidence-based practice across the organisation.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that UpToDate global customer support team has received the NorthFace ScoreBoard Award for excellence in 2012 from Omega Management Group Corp. It is the second consecutive year that the UpToDate customer support team has been recognised by Omega for exceeding customer expectations.

Heidi Gentleman Cullen, Vice President, Global Customer Operations, UpToDate, Wolters Kluwer Health, Clinical Solutions, will accept the award during presentation ceremonies highlighting Omega's annual SCORE Conference 2013 taking place from May 29-31.

Now in its 13th year, the NorthFace ScoreBoard award is presented annually to companies that, as rated solely on survey responses from their own customers, achieved excellence in customer satisfaction and loyalty during the prior calendar year.

Omega's methodology measures customer satisfaction and loyalty levels on a 5-point scale (or equivalent) at least four times during the year in such categories as technical support, field service, customer service and account management. Award recipients achieved a customer satisfaction rating of 4.0 or above. The UpToDate customer support team, which provides customer support and training to customers in 158 countries, received a score of 4.5 for customer service and 4.4 for both individual and enterprise site support.

Optimal Medicine, a personalized medicine company dedicated to improving healthcare through state-of-the-art software, and publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. have announced their collaboration on mehealthT, an online clinical decision support for mental health disorders.

mehealthT enables clinicians to provide patient-centric care, informed by evidence-based guidance from the most respected sources of clinical guidelines and knowledge, and will include Wiley's international best-selling clinical reference, The Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry. Optimal Medicine will incorporate The Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry into its decision support software, enabling the content to provide one of the guidance sources accessible to mehealthT users at the point of care.

The Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines claim to be an invaluable guide for anyone responsible for prescribing, dispensing or administering drugs for patients with mental health disorders. All the evidence has been reviewed and summarized succinctly by an expert team of psychiatrists and pharmacists. This evidence is delivered by mehealthT in an individualized, context-specific format at the appropriate time in the clinical workflow. Summary information is presented, with access to the familiar tables and flowcharts of The Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines, backed up with extensive referencing so that users can assess the supporting evidence.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that its clinical decision support resource, UpToDate has been named by IDG's Computerworld Honors Program as a 2013 Laureate for its Global Health Initiative.

A partnership between Wolters Kluwer Health and the Global Health Delivery (GHD) Project at Harvard University, the UpToDate Global Health Initiative provides clinicians practicing in resource-limited settings with donated subscriptions to UpToDate, a peer-reviewed, evidence-based clinical resource developed to aid in diagnosis and clinical management. It also provides ongoing development of clinical content specific to the needs of clinicians in these settings and a dedicated community on GHDonline.

Free access to UpToDate has benefited 175 institutions and 8,400 clinicians caring for more than 2 million patients in 45 countries. The program has also facilitated UpToDate access following natural disasters worldwide, including the earthquakes in Haiti, Japan and New Zealand.

The annual Computerworld Honors award programme recognises visionary applications of information technology to promote positive social, economic and educational change. The Computerworld Honors Program awards will be presented at the Gala Evening and Awards Ceremony on June 3, 2013, at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.

STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that PharmaPendium, a source of preclinical, clinical and post-market data, has added a new module to its content base, the Metabolizing Enzymes and Transporters Module.

The addition of the module to PharmaPendium's existing content is projected to give researchers a greater understanding and visibility of Drug-Drug Interactions (DDI) and their potential adverse reactions during the critical stages of drug discovery and development.

The new module will reportedly benefit researchers including toxicologists, pharmacokinetics researchers and departments, safety pharmacologists and clinical pharmacologists, who demand the highest quality data on preclinical and clinical metabolising enzymes and transporters. These researchers often struggle to find comparative data to understand how changes in the activity of metabolising enzymes and transporters affect the safety and efficacy of drugs. Currently, available information on DDIs is seen to be hard to collate and analyse and is not always normalised for comparison, making data analysis not only labour and cost intensive, but also open to critical error.

PharmaPendium's Metabolising Enzymes and Transporters Module is said to allow for rapid, full text-search of literature from sources including approval documents from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA). It extracts both in vivo and in vitrohuman and animal experimental data on metabolising enzymes and transporters contained in preclinical and clinical studies, and applies it to the context of researchers' experiments, facilitating efficient and diligent drug development.

PharmaPendium is part of Elsevier's Life Science Solutions, a suite of interoperable, domain-specific, decision support tools which span the discovery and development workflow, including Reaxys, Reaxys Medicinal Chemistry, ScienceDirect, Scopus, TargetInsights, Pathway Studio and Embase.

PharmaPendium Metabolising Enzymes and Transporters Module is available immediately. For more information go to www.elsevier.com/pharmapendium.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that Methodist Health System has selected its ProVation Medical software for gastroenterology procedure documentation and coding.

Headquartered in Omaha, Neb., Methodist Health System claims to be the oldest health system in Nebraska and southwestern Iowa and includes Methodist Hospital, Methodist Jennie Edmundson Hospital, Methodist Women's Hospital, 21 physician clinics and three urgent care centers. Ranked second in Nebraska in U.S. News & World Report's 2012-13 Best Hospitals rankings, Methodist Health System was named a high performer in the specialties of cancer, geriatrics, gynecology, urology, and ear, nose and throat in the 2013 Best Hospitals rankings. Methodist Hospital and Methodist Jennie Edmundson Hospital also received Top Performer Awards from Professional Research Consultants for in- and out-patient care, respectively.

ProVation Medical provides procedure documentation and clinical decision support solutions for hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers. ProVation MD and ProVation MultiCaregiver reduce transcription, paper storage and image printing costs and deliver a high Return on Investment (ROI). ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, and ProVation Care Plans, powered by Lippincott's Nursing Solutions, put evidence-based healthcare into practice by establishing and maintaining standards of care.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that Medi-Span customers still have time to add previously released files to map Medi-Span proprietary vocabularies to ICD-10, helping to meet the Department of Human and Health Services (HHS) compliance requirements by the October 2014 deadline.

Nearly one year ago, Medi-Span launched ICD-10 mapping files for its customers to map Medi-Span proprietary vocabularies to ICD-10, helping customers to meet HHS compliance requirements before the previously-set deadline. Several Medi-Span clinical content sets utilise proprietary vocabularies to identify diseases, conditions and procedures. These include Drug Disease Monitoring System, Medical Conditions Master Database, The Medi-Span Solution or Middleware COM, Drug Information Bridge, and Medi-Span Clinical. Medi-Span continues to support its customers with the flexibility to either continue with existing Medi-Span solutions or to implement more current and advanced Medi-Span offerings to meet the ICD-10 requirements. Available in flat file and API solutions, these files help enable healthcare systems to translate to and from codes in the patient record, supporting interoperability.

Part of Wolters Kluwer Health, Medi-Span is a provider of drug information for thousands of healthcare professionals worldwide. With more than 30 years experience, Medi-Span continues to offer authoritative drug databases in a variety of formats, including clinical decision support and disease suite modules, application programming interfaces and stand-alone software applications.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that UpToDate, its evidence-based clinical decision support resource, has enhanced the quality of patient care at Grupo Hospitalar Conceição (GHC) in Porte Alegre and increased physician satisfaction in its use for effective clinical support and training.

UpToDate is a frequently-updated, evidence-based resource authored by leading medical doctors to help make the right decisions at the point of care. In 2007, GHC was evaluating clinical decision support options and UpToDate was selected not only to improve care for patients but also for training and continuing professional development and medical education.

Hospital management at GHC encouraged adoption of UpToDate and facilitated access by offering a link to UpToDate on every computer to ensure doctors could use it anywhere in the institution, at any time. This, coupled with effective strategies for implementation, led to a consistently steady increase in usage. Clinicians who were familiar with UpToDate immediately started using it and they, in turn, served as a collaborative resource for others who were new to UpToDate.

Doctors routinely consult UpToDate for an array of topics across a wide range of specialties, seeing UpToDate as an essential tool in every department.

STM Publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that the Medical University of South Carolina Health System (MUSC) has selected its CPM CarePoints interdisciplinary care planning and clinical documentation solution for its electronic health record (EHR).

MUSC is stated to be one of the nation's top academic health science centres, with a 750-bed medical centre (MUSC Health) and six colleges that train more than 3,000 healthcare professionals per year, virtually all of whom will now have direct access to Elsevier's CPM content solutions. CPM CarePoints will be delivered through seamless integration with MUSC's Epic EHR and will support the hospital's improvements in patient outcomes and transformation of its clinical practice.

CPM CarePoints seeks to provide an all-inclusive framework for implementing actionable, evidence-based care and documentation tools across all clinical domains. Designed to offer the latest scientific and clinical guidance on a wide range of diagnoses, CPM CarePoints can be utilised and referenced by all clinicians within a hospital setting for practice-specific, expert guidance, as well as provide the tools they need to document and monitor that care.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that ThedaCare has selected its ProVation Medical software for cardiology procedure documentation and coding in its cardiac catheterization labs at Appleton Medical Center and Theda Clark Medical Center.

ProVation MD Cardiology is a dedicated procedure documentation and coding solution that improves clinical communication and efficiency within and outside the cath lab. The system allows cardiologists to document even the most complex procedures quickly and completely. By automatically applying the appropriate reimbursement codes and disseminating critical procedural information, ProVation MD Cardiology maximizes reimbursement, reduces costs and streamlines quality reporting while improving clinical communication and care coordination.

Headquartered in Appleton, Wis., ThedaCare is a community health system consisting of five hospitals - Appleton Medical Center, New London Family Medical Center, Riverside Medical Center, Shawano Medical Center, Theda Clark Medical Center - and 22 physician locations in nine counties. With approximately 6,100 employees, ThedaCare is the third largest healthcare employer in Wisconsin. Both Appleton Medical Center and Theda Clark Medical Center are eight-time recipients of the National Research Corporation's Consumer Choice Hospital Award based on quality ratings from area consumers.

Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced that clinicians in the UK can now access authoritative and trusted guidance on the selection and use of medicines from the British National Formulary (BNF) directly from DynaMed, an evidence-based clinical information resource. EBSCO announced that DynaMed drug topics now include links to the corresponding BNF topics which can be accessed by BNF subscribers.

The links allow clinicians to consult UK specific information on selecting, prescribing, dispensing and administering medicines at the point-of-care in concert with the evidence-based reference information available in DynaMed. BNF is the latest UK resource to be accessible through DynaMed, joining the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines; Patient UK Links; and links to electronic Medicines Compendium (eMC).

The BNF provides UK healthcare professionals with authoritative and practical information on the selection and clinical use of medicines in a clear, concise and accessible manner. Published monthly online and biannually in print, the BNF is a joint publication of the British Medical Association and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Duncan Enright, the Publishing Director of the BNF at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, believes that the inclusion of the BNF links in DynaMed will ensure that subscribers using DynaMed will have access to the most trusted UK drug information.

DynaMed is a clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other healthcare professionals for use at the point-of-care. With clinically-organised summaries for more than 3,200 topics, DynaMed provides the latest content and resources with validity, relevance and convenience, making DynaMed an indispensable resource for answering most clinical questions during practice.

Updated daily, DynaMed editors monitor the content of over 500 medical journals on a daily basis. Each article is evaluated for clinical relevance and scientific validity. The new evidence is then integrated with existing content, and overall conclusions are changed as appropriate, representing a synthesis of the best available evidence. Through this process of systematic literature surveillance, the best available evidence determines the content of DynaMed.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that British Columbia's Divisions of Family Practice has selected UpToDate as its evidence-based clinical decision support system. By integrating UpToDate into its member portal, the organisation's 4,000 practitioners can access the latest evidence-based information at the point of care and accrue Main-Pro CMS credits for each search performed.

Divisions of Family Practice is a community-based group of family physicians working together to achieve common healthcare goals. The initiative supports 32 non-profit agencies, including most family practices in British Columbia, encompassing 127 communities. The Divisions of Family Practice is focused on improving patient care, increasing family physicians' influence on healthcare delivery and policy, and providing professional satisfaction for physicians.

UpToDate is an evidence-based, physician-authored clinical knowledge system which clinicians trust to make the right point-of-care decisions. UpToDate's more than 5,100 world-renowned physician authors, editors and peer reviewers use a rigorous editorial process to synthesise the most recent medical information into trusted, evidence-based recommendations that are proven to improve patient care and quality.

The Intellectual Property (IP) & Science business of Thomson Reuters has announced a partnership to provide Syngenta, a leading agricultural company, with an integrated, enterprise-wide asset management solution. The partnership aims to standardise and centralise IP and legal contracting processes. It will support the development of integrated strategies, enable global collaboration across the different units of Syngenta and minimise risk.

As part of Syngenta's search for a new intellectual asset management solution provider, the company engaged the Thomson Reuters IP management consulting team as a partner in a thorough business needs analysis and solution development programme. The goal of this was to better understand current and future business requirements, and opportunities for operational efficiency.

The Thomson Reuters consultants worked closely with leaders and change agents from across Syngenta to assess systems, define a long-term vision, and establish a configured solution that addresses people, processes and technology. Syngenta ultimately selected an enterprise-wide solution including Thomson IP Manager because of its product's unique ability to link patent and trademark assets with contracts across product lines to form the "magic triangle" of IP-contracts-products. In addition, the team chose IP Payments from Thomson Reuters to ensure accurate portfolio maintenance and legal services from the Thomson Reuters Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) unit.

In a joint development project, Thomson Reuters and Syngenta designed a holistic solution that provided links between contracts, products and IP, improving the strategic deployment of legal, IP and licensing assets in support of Syngenta's growth agenda, as well as improving quality of information and portfolio-level management data. The new platform allows full visibility and management of rights and risks in a rapidly growing and increasingly complex business environment; where there are multiple dependencies between IP rights, licensing, contracts and products.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that it has leveraged functionality from its Lexicomp and UpToDate solutions to create a comprehensive, embedded patient education offering for hospitals.

The Integrated Patient Education solution allows pharmacists, physicians and nurses to easily access patient education from within applications they use most often, minimising disruptions to daily workflow, improving efficiency and enhancing patient care.

Available in up to 19 languages, the Integrated Patient Education solution provides consistent information between Lexicomp and UpToDate, helping to eliminate the potential for discrepancies or conflicting data. Patients and family members receive reliable and consistent information from clinicians, and hospitals experience increased efficiencies, decreased costs, and improved patient outcomes by consolidating resource content through one vendor.

STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has aligned its clinical decision support (CDS) and clinical reference solutions to help healthcare providers and payers achieve clinical, operational and financial excellence.

The latest example of this alignment is InOrder by Elsevier, an intuitive, cloud-based order set solution that enables clinicians to author, review and publish orders in a collaborative environment that quickly translates evidence-based knowledge into better patient care. By combining Elsevier's experience in providing evidence-based content and the capability to make updates rapidly as regulations and medications change, InOrder is expected to help hospitals and clinicians increase patient safety and prevent medical errors.

Elsevier will demonstrate its integrated solutions at its booth (#6129) at the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS13) annual meeting in New Orleans, March 4-6.

Using a patient-centered approach, Elsevier claims to have aligned an integrated suite of capabilities for healthcare providers unmatched in the industry. These include analytics & reporting, drug reference & decision support, learning & performance management, evidence-based guidelines, clinical content & order sets, interdisciplinary care planning & documentation and patient education and engagement.

Also at HIMSS13, Elsevier will present several new and enhanced product solutions. Dr Jonathan Teich, PhD, FHIMSS, FACMI, Elsevier's Chief Medical Informatics Officer, will host a special breakfast briefing called 'A New Approach to Practical, Usable Order Sets' on March 4. The briefing will examine the challenges of order sets and how Elsevier's new solution, InOrder, addresses those challenges. Those interested in attending should register online.

Elsevier will also demonstrate ClinicalKey, a clinical insight engine that provides current and clinically relevant evidence-based answers, as well as expert commentary, MEDLINE abstracts and select third-party journals. At HIMSS13, ClinicalKey will also salute the winners of its first Key Innovator Award contest.

Elsevier's MEDai analytics group will demonstrate the Physician Portal and Physician Profiler in its new MEDai Navigator solution and its new Pinpoint Risk product. Dr Peter Edelstein, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Elsevier's MEDai analytics group, will present on 'Predictive Analytics for the Bedside Provider' at the HIMSS13 Clinical & Business Analytics/Intelligence Knowledge Center, Booth #869, Kiosk #4, on March 4.

Elsevier's ExitCare will showcase two solutions for engaging patients. The first is ExitCare OnScreen, a video delivery system that delivers a collection of multimedia programmes through digital video, animated graphics and interactive questions. The second is ExitCare Program, a meaningful use certifiable solution that delivers print-based patient education. This will be featured in the HIMSS13 Meaningful Use Experience pavilion, kiosk #149-24.

Elsevier's Revenue Cycle eLearning will demonstrate its phased, role-based planning and online education resources for ICD-10 that ensure hospital staff receive the right training at the right time. At the ICD-10 Knowledge Center (booth #4581, kiosk #2) on March 4, ICD-10 expert Deb Neville, RHIA, CCS-P, Elsevier's Director of Revenue Cycle, Coding and Compliance, will present 'ICD-10 Transition: Building Confidence.'

Two of Elsevier's nationally known thought leaders will be active at HIMSS13. Dr. Teich will present the closing keynote – 'The Future of Healthcare Innovation' – at the HIMSS Innovation Symposium on March 3. And Michelle Troseth, MSN, RN, DPNAP, FAANRN, Elsevier's Chief Professional Practice Officer, will co-present a HIMSS Educational Session on 'TIGER IMPACT: Measuring VLE Metrics and More of the TIGER Story!' on March 4.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced the introduction of ProVation Care Plans, powered by Lippincott's Nursing Solutions. The robust software solution that provides nurses and allied health professionals with the tools they need to create, customise and maintain evidence-based interdisciplinary care plans.

ProVation Care Plans, powered by Lippincott's Nursing Solutions offers evidence-based care plans developed by the expert Lippincott's Nursing Solutions team and its network of hundreds of practicing clinicians. Combined with the dynamic ProVation software, it allows hospitals to define and maintain a custom care plans library while adhering to industry-accepted nursing and medical diagnoses, goals and interventions. ProVation Care Plans supports the care plan customisation process, utilising a full suite of embedded links to online, evidence-based practice content from Lippincott's Nursing Solutions.

Created in partnership with Lippincott's Nursing Solutions, the leading international provider of online evidence-based practice workflow products, customers can customise care plan templates and then import them into their electronic medical record (EMR) system for clinicians to use as a basis for care. When combined with full access to the Lippincott's Nursing Solutions product suite, clinicians can, at the point of care through their EMR, directly access both care plan information and all accompanying evidence-based content needed to effectively manage care. The total solution provides the latest evidence-based practice at the bedside, which supports the providers' need to improve their performance measures and quality indicators, helping health systems better manage patient care.

Driven by the best available evidence from Lippincott's Nursing Solutions, UpToDate and Ovid MEDLINE, ProVation Care Plans ensure that interdisciplinary care teams have the information they need to enhance clinical practice and demonstrate compliance with credentialing and standards for the Joint Commission and other regulatory bodies.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that its Medi-Span solution has been expanded to include a new Patient Safety Programs File. The application enables health IT systems to rapidly identify drugs containing specific characteristics that require surveillance based on federal regulations.

Along with its ability to help facilitate compliance with government reporting requirements, the Patient Safety Programs File also supports the development of patient safety initiatives. It does this by incorporating drug indicators into the workflows of clinician end-users.

The application identifies drugs that require a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) programme and includes a summary of the REMS programmes. This summary can be incorporated directly into the clinician's workflow to provide the type of information they need for the programme when at the point of care. The file can also include the associated Medication Guides as reported by the manufacturer in PDF and PCL5 formats.

Other supported indicators include Black Box Warnings (BBW) including text of warning in XML format, Medication Guide Requirements outside of REMS, Acetaminophen Ingredient, Pseudoephedrine Ingredient and Tall Man Drug Names.

By adding the Patient Safety Programs File to its Medi-Span drug database offerings, WK Health seeks to equip healthcare organisations with the automation needed to help rapidly pinpoint potential problem drugs, streamline compliance and achieve the highest level of patient safety.

STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the launch of InOrder, an intuitive, cloud-based order sets solution that enables clinicians to author, review and publish orders in a collaborative environment that quickly translates evidence-based knowledge into better patient care.

By combining Elsevier's deep experience in providing evidence-based content and the capability to make updates rapidly as regulations and medications change, InOrder can help hospitals and clinicians increase patient safety and prevent medical errors.

Without integrated systems in place to support efficient order set creation and review, hospitals and health systems often can take months to create or update a single order set. Without understanding and streamlining the communications among multiple authors and approvers, insufficient order set systems can languish and fail despite the best efforts of the contributors.

InOrder includes access to relevant evidence-based answers from ClinicalKey, Elsevier's clinical insight engine; advanced collaboration tools for order set development, maintenance, access and tracking; tailored, concise ordering focused on the most common scenarios; availability across technology platforms enabled by a cloud-based delivery model; localization tools to incorporate hospitals' clinical terminologies and import existing order sets; enhanced clinical guidance and evidence within the set; and quality metric indicators that highlight orders important for guidelines and metrics.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that it has developed a multi-faceted approach to addressing alert fatigue through its Medi-Span clinical decision support solutions. Medi-Span is said to combine its functionality for alert customisation and regular clinical content updates with 35 years of on-site clinical consulting experience to create a holistic solution to the significant challenge of clinicians bypassing alerts.

To address the need for alert balance, Medi-Span Clinical allows for alert customisation by site, department or end-user to reduce the number of irrelevant alerts by user type. Alongside this customisation, the solution provides contextual alerting content that considers patient profile data such as symptoms, age, weight, gender and renal function to create smarter and more relevant alerts.

Medi-Span clinical decision support solutions are seen to back this with regular updating of clinical content based on industry changes, which eliminates outdated clinical alerts, and a team of seasoned consultants who can help healthcare organisations and users optimise the Medi-Span solutions within their systems.

DynaMed, a clinical reference that seeks to offer timely updates and a strong evidence-based approach, has announced an agreement with Isabel Healthcare, which produces the highly respected differential diagnosis tool Isabel. The integration and the new reselling agreement seamlessly extends evidence-based medicine into diagnosis decision-making.

Extending evidence-based medicine into diagnosis will give clinicians key information necessary to help differentiate between the diagnoses suggested by Isabel and to decide on the next steps. Mutual customers can link from Isabel to access the evidence-based information in DynaMed, and it is now even easier for customers to acquire and integrate the two resources. The recently expanded partnership between DynaMed and Isabel allows healthcare organisations to easily purchase Isabel directly from EBSCO Publishing, the parent company of DynaMed.

The strength of these combined resources along with DynaMed's and Isabel's ability to integrate into most Electronic Health Record systems, make it a convenient and indispensible tool for answering most clinical questions during practice.

Isabel is projected as the industry-leading diagnosis decision support system designed to help broaden the differential and provide testing and treatment information at the point of need. For a given set of signs and symptoms, Isabel presents the clinician with a list of likely diagnoses to consider, and each diagnosis is linked to knowledge to help with further investigation, potential testing and treatment. The Isabel system has been extensively validated and is currently being used by leading healthcare systems to improve efficiency in decision making.

DynaMed is a clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other healthcare professionals for use at the point-of-care. With clinically-organised summaries for more than 3,200 topics, DynaMed provides the latest content and resources with validity, relevance and convenience, making DynaMed an indispensable resource for answering most clinical questions during practice.

Updated daily, DynaMed editors monitor the content of over 500 medical journals on a daily basis. Each article is evaluated for clinical relevance and scientific validity. The new evidence is then integrated with existing content, and overall conclusions are changed as appropriate, representing a synthesis of the best available evidence. Through this process of systematic literature surveillance, the best available evidence determines the content of DynaMed.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Bali Royal Hospital has selected UpToDate as its evidence-based clinical decision support system. The hospital represents the first UpToDate client in Indonesia.

Bali Royal Hospital opened its doors in 2010 to provide comprehensive medical services to local patients and tourists in the city of Bali and across East Indonesia. The facility selected UpToDate to increase physician adoption of the latest industry best practices across its four centers of excellence - in vitro fertilization, endoscopy, neuroscience and cosmetic surgery - as well as homecare and general medical practice.

Part of WK Health, UpToDate is an evidence-based, physician-authored clinical knowledge system which clinicians trust to make the right point-of-care decisions. UpToDate's more than 5,100 world-renowned physician authors, editors and peer reviewers use a rigorous editorial process to synthesize the most recent medical information into trusted, evidence-based recommendations that are proven to improve patient care and quality.

More than 700,000 clinicians in 158 countries and almost 90 percent of academic medical centers in the US rely on UpToDate, and more than 30 research studies confirm UpToDate's widespread usage and association with improved patient care and hospital performance, including reduced length of stay, adverse complications and mortality.

Elsevier's Gold Standard, a drug information provider, has announced the launch of the MEDalternatives database, a comprehensive resource for drug therapy options designed to give health plans and their members additional drug cost savings options through access to information on alternative therapies. MEDalternatives uses only evidence-based alternatives that have comparable or better efficacy and safety, compared to current prescriptions.

MEDalternatives covers a broad range of health conditions and the widest scope of medications, including a complete offering of drugs, drug classes, and product formulations. It returns alternatives within the class of the patient's current medication and across classes, including both generics and brands, and also provides therapeutically appropriate choices among subclasses of drugs.

MEDalternatives includes complete dosing options to ensure accurate comparisons in daily/weekly regimens and monthly/yearly costs, including those for in-store purchase versus mail-order delivery.

According to the company, MEDalternatives is derived from the most technologically sophisticated drug database available today and will easily integrate within and across diverse healthcare systems.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Parkview Health has selected its ProVation Medical Software for gastroenterology procedure documentation and coding.

Located in Fort Wayne, Ind., Parkview Health is an eight-hospital, community-based health system and northeast Indiana's largest healthcare provider. Parkview was awarded the VHA Central PEAK Award for Performance Excellence and its Integrated Community Nursing Program was one of five programs nationally to receive the American Hospital Association (AHA) NOVA Award. It was also ranked the top 5 percent in the nation for clinical excellence in 2011 by HealthGrades and is among the top 5 percent in the nation for the treatment of stroke.

ProVation Medical provides procedure documentation and clinical decision support solutions for hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers. ProVation MD and ProVation MultiCaregiver reduce transcription, paper storage and image printing costs and deliver a high Return on Investment (ROI). ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, and ProVation Care Plans, powered by Lippincott's Nursing Solutions, put evidence-based healthcare into practice by establishing and maintaining standards of care.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Scripps Health has selected its ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, software as its electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. ProVation Order Sets is built upon ProVation Medical's award-winning, clinician-designed technology platform. A key benefit is continuous updating of clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 600,000 users worldwide.

Located in San Diego, Calif., Scripps Health is a private, non-profit integrated health system serving the southern coast of California from Chula Vista to Oceanside. It includes five acute-care hospital campuses, a network of 23 integrated outpatient clinics, home health services and 2,600 affiliated physicians.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Centra Health has selected its ProVation Medical software for cardiology procedure documentation and coding in its cardiac catheterisation labs.

ProVation software replaces dictation/transcription and streamlines the coding and billing process. Unlike cardiovascular information systems (CVIS), which collect patient measurements and administrative data, ProVation MD for Cardiology lets clinicians quickly and completely document medical procedures at the point of care, and then applies the appropriate reimbursement codes to drive compliance and revenue recovery. It interfaces with cardiovascular nursing, imaging and measurement systems to complete the electronic documentation process and free busy cardiologists and technologists from time-consuming dictation.

Located in Lynchburg, Va., Centra is a non-profit regional healthcare system providing comprehensive health services to the residents of central and southwest Virginia through three acute care hospitals - Lynchburg General, Virginia Baptist and Southside Community. Centra also includes residential and outpatient mental health facilities, home health and hospice programmes, and mammography, sleep disorders, wound care and hyperbaric medicine centers.

Healthcare information service provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that its ProVation MD software received top ranking in the Clinical Procedure Documentation Category of the 2012 Top 20 Best in KLAS Awards: Software and Professional Services report. This is the sixth consecutive year that ProVation MD has received the top honour in this category from KLAS, an independent healthcare IT vendor research firm that recognises healthcare vendors for their leadership in working with customers to ensure satisfaction.

The annual Best in KLAS Awards measures performance based on customer surveys and in-depth interviews and gauges insight into specific strengths, weaknesses and future expectations for companies and their products. This annual recognition assists medical facilities in providing an unbiased and accurate vehicle for measuring performance in the healthcare industry, allowing for further understanding of how well suppliers and products perform.

ProVation Medical provides procedure documentation and clinical decision support solutions for hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers. ProVation MD and ProVation MultiCaregiver software reduce transcription, paper storage and image printing costs and deliver a high Return on Investment (ROI). ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, put evidence-based healthcare into practice by establishing and maintaining standards of care.

Healthcare information service provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that UpToDate, part of WK Health, has released MobileComplete for Android users. A downloadable local version of its free app, UpToDate MobileComplete, is the fastest mobile version of UpToDate, providing clinicians with access to evidence-based, practical recommendations, even offline. With this release, UpToDate offers customers local access to trusted, evidence-based information across iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

For individual subscribers, UpToDate MobileComplete takes the speed and convenience of UpToDate Mobile, a free on-demand app for iPhone, iPad and Android devices, a step further, enabling users to download the UpToDate clinical content locally to their device. With MobileComplete, clinicians can use UpToDate without an Internet connection - even in dead zones - accessing clinical knowledge contained within the UpToDate database locally. To ensure users access the most current recommendations, the app verifies that requested content is the most recent when a network connection is present.

Both UpToDate MobileComplete and UpToDate Mobile for iPhone, iPad and Android offer critical features such as bookmarks, auto-complete search, saved search history, optimised calculators and CME credits for each time a clinical question is researched. In addition, UpToDate MobileComplete enables clinicians to reduce their data usage if using a limited data plan.

Healthcare information service provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Covenant HealthCare has selected its ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, software as its electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets is an easily customizable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance.

ProVation Order Sets is built upon ProVation Medical's award-winning, clinician-designed technology platform. A key benefit is continuous updating of clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 600,000 users worldwide.

Located in Saginaw, Mich., the 623-bed Covenant HealthCare is a non-profit health system with more than 20 inpatient and outpatient facilities and a trauma/emergency department that provides 80,000 visits annually. It is one of the largest, most comprehensive healthcare providers north of metro Detroit and is accredited by the Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP).

STM publisher Elsevier has announced that ExitCare, its enterprise-wide solution for evidence-based patient education and discharge instructions, is now integrated directly with the MEDITECH Electronic Health Record (EHR).

In collaboration with MEDITECH, ExitCare's library of content, organised by care setting and composed of both Easy to Read and Standard content, is available in English and Spanish through MEDITECH's EHR, via the Patient Discharge Instruction application. ExitCare's content is not only designed to offer healthcare providers an optimal user experience and more streamlined clinical workflow, but it is also intended to deliver relevant, condition-specific information to patients at the point of care.

Elsevier's ExitCare provides associated print, electronic and video patient education content and tools that are critical to increasing patient engagement and reducing readmissions. The solution also meets the emerging needs of both hospitals and office-based physicians who wish to provide a multimedia education experience for their patients. The ExitCare text-based content will also be fully accessible via MEDITECH's Patient & Consumer Health Portal offering, extending the integration benefits to wherever patients need it most.

ExitCare is also working closely with MEDITECH to bring customers ExitCare OnScreen, a video delivery system and content library for patient education. It is an engaging collection of multimedia programmes comprising digital video, interactive questions and animated graphics. Future integration within the MEDITECH platform will provide users the ability to launch ExitCare OnScreen and view reports directly from the MEDITECH application.

Healthcare information service provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced the general availability of its integration interface between Epic and ProVation Care Plans. Developed in collaboration with Duke University Health System, the interface seeks to enable hospitals to create and customise care plans via the ProVation software and then make finished care plans available in the Epic inpatient clinical platform.

The ProVation Care Plans is projected as a software solution for efficient interdisciplinary care plan creation, customisation and maintenance. By offering best-in-class care plans derived from Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, along with embedded links to the latest industry evidence, performance measures and quality indicators, the software is claimed to provide hospitals with the ability to define and maintain a personalised care plans library. Further, the solution helps drive clinical consensus on standards of care, while adhering to industry-accepted nursing and medical diagnoses, goals and interventions.

Since ProVation's platform is built using structured data, the process of importing care plans into Epic is stated to be greatly simplified. Care plan problems, interventions, goals, narratives and associated evidence links come across in the import, as do patient education teaching topics. Additionally, the import seeks to ensure that only changed items are added to the EMR database versus a complete overwrite of the care plans content. The simple data migration technology streamlines the transfer of content from ProVation to the EMR, ensuring that care plans are consistent and accurate.

Driven by evidence including UpToDate, Clin-eguide and Ovid MEDLINE, ProVation Care Plans are said to ensure that interdisciplinary care teams have the information they need to enhance practice and demonstrate compliance with credentialing and standards for Joint Commission and other regulatory bodies. Created in partnership with Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, ProVation Care Plans provides access to a range of Wolters Kluwer Health content, abstracts and full-text articles.

Business information provider UBM Tech, US, has launched EE Times University, a six-month, free live digital educational experience for design engineers. The University is designed by EE Times, an independent engineering resource for design decision makers in the electronics industry.

EE Times University takes learning to the next level by revealing the latest technologies. Each track consists of five one-hour courses hosted by a guest lecturer, combining live educational broadcasts with interactive chat and a downloadable presentation. All courses are also available on-demand. Future track topics may include microprocessors, ARM architecture, microcontrollers, high-speed digital design, embedded design & software, OEM, Software instrumentation, interconnectors, power and circuits, LEDs, wireless, and security.

Interested parties may visit http://university.eetimes.com/lecture-calendar.asp?cid=500 to register for EE Times University.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Lexicomp and UpToDate, both part of WK Health, have collaborated to enhance the patient education leaflets in the Lexicomp Online product to include new and updated content.

As a part of WK Health, Lexicomp collaborated with UpToDate to enhance the overall patient education offering in Lexicomp Online. As a result, Lexicomp Online now offers an increased number of leaflets in the areas of Conditions, Procedures, Discharge Instructions, and Healthy Living, totaling more than 2300 leaflets, all of which are available in both English and Spanish.

Lexicomp Online also offers more than 1800 adult medication leaflets and more than 1000 pediatric medication leaflets. All leaflets are written in a clear, concise, easy-to-read format (5th to 7th grade reading level) and are available in up to 19 languages to help support compliance and promote patient safety to a diverse patient population.

Later this quarter, WK Health will announce an upcoming enhancement to the patient education delivery capability of materials within Lexicomp Online, including a new and improved API along with HL7 Info Button compliance. This improved functionality will give healthcare systems the ability to include the full suite of patient education leaflets and build links to these patient education leaflets from within their workflow.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Eugene Gastroenterology Consultants, P.C., has selected its ProVation Medical Software for gastroenterology procedure documentation and coding.

Located in Eugene, Ore., Eugene Gastroenterology Consultants provides state-of-the-art medical care in a broad range of expertise in the specialty of gastrointestinal and liver disease. It claims to be the largest medical group specialising in gastroenterology south of Portland, Ore., and its physicians boast a combined 110 years of specialty experience.

ProVation Medical provides procedure documentation and clinical decision support solutions for hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers. ProVation MD, ProVation MultiCaregiver and ProVation EHR software reduce transcription, paper storage and image printing costs and deliver a high Return on Investment (ROI). ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, put evidence-based healthcare into practice by establishing and maintaining standards of care.

Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Beaufort Memorial Hospital has selected its ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, software as the hospital’s electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets claims to be an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance.

ProVation Order Sets is built upon ProVation Medical’s clinician-designed technology platform. A key benefit is continuous updating of clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 600,000 users worldwide.

Located in Beaufort, S.C., the 197-bed Beaufort Memorial Hospital is home to more than 150 board certified or board-eligible physicians. Situated on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the hospital is one of the few hospitals in the country with its own emergency dock. Beaufort Memorial Hospital is a Duke Affiliate in heart and cancer and is Joint Commission-accredited.

DynaMed, a clinical reference that seeks to offer timely updates and a strong evidence-based approach, has reportedly become more well-known among clinicians and other healthcare professionals. Now, guideline developers, adapters, implementers and users are taking notice, according to the company. A recent breast cancer guideline commissioned by Seguro Social, Costa Rica's public health system, is said to have been completed in a much shorter timeframe, with a smaller staff and for less money by using DynaMed plus two existing guidelines as the starting point. DynaMed is a proprietary database of EBSCO Publishing, US.

It is observed that guidelines are typically developed using a lengthy process to identify the current evidence related to any intervention for a particular condition, evaluate the current evidence and summarise the evidence. Development can take 18-24 months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Costa Rican development team was given six months. The guideline was completed in five months, and on budget.

Dr. Mario Tristan is the Chairperson and Director-General of the International Health Central American Institute and the Director of Cochrane Central America and the Spanish Caribbean Branch. He, along with CCSS Medical Advisor Dr. Anggie Ramirez, was tasked with creating the breast cancer guideline in Costa Rica. He says by using DynaMed guideline developers were able to dramatically reduce the time it takes to perform a comprehensive search of the literature and find relevant studies.

The Costa Rican team's use of DynaMed was presented at the recent Guidelines International Network Conference (G-I-N) piquing the interest of many guideline developers wanting to know more about the methodology used in Costa Rica and evaluating how DynaMed can be used for guideline development support.

According to DynaMed representatives, the benefits do not stop with guideline creation since the tool is also able to disseminate the guidelines to clinicians and provide alerts to guideline developers when new evidence is introduced — evidence that may impact existing guidelines.

Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that UpToDate offers new EHR integration capabilities through an HL7 Infobutton. UpToDate is part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

Clinicians now have easy and efficient access within their clinical workflow to the most current and authoritative information available on over 9,500 topics across 20 specialties. The HL7 Infobutton significantly streamlines the point-of-care decision-making process, saves valuable time and money and most importantly, improves the quality of patient care.

According to a June 2011 Clinician Survey conducted by UpToDate, 91 percent of users said that having UpToDate embedded in their EHR is important to patient care, while 89 percent reported that it enhances satisfaction with their EHR. Forty percent suggest having UpToDate embedded in their EHR encourages use of their EHR, underscoring the value of the integration to support meaningful use requirements and improve overall quality of care.

Interested parties may visit http://tinyurl.com/bohb3jg to learn more about HL7 Infobutton Integration, and to access a webcast recording featuring Dr. Beck, 'Setting the Standard for Care: HL7 Infobutton Integration.' The webcast also features Dr. Bonis and Dr. Howard Strasberg, Vice President, Medical Informatics, Wolters Kluwer Health, and explores how the HL7 Infobutton is currently used at hospitals, supports Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements for clinical decision support, and impacts patient care.

DynaMed, a clinical reference tool designed for use primarily at the point of care, has ranked highest among ten online clinical resources in a new study in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. The resources were evaluated in three areas - timeliness of content updating, breadth of coverage and the quality of evidence reporting.

According to the report, DynaMed consistently ranked near the top of each category. Clinical point-of-care resources such as DynaMed are seen to be necessary for clinicians to access the best available evidence for thousands of clinical topics. It is updated daily and can be integrated into any EMR system.

DynaMed is used by more than half a million clinicians in over 125 countries. More than 4,000 physicians and other healthcare professionals across 60 specialties contribute to the resource and more than 200,000 medical articles are summarized in DynaMed — providing doctors and other healthcare providers with access to the latest clinical evidence.

DynaMed was also rated highest in its category by healthcare providers in a report on clinical decision support resources by KLAS, a research firm that specialises in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors. DynaMed also came out on top in a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The BMJ study looked at how quickly five point-of-care products updated new evidence.

A study published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association (J Med Libr Assoc 2011 Jul;99(3):247) tested DynaMed against seven other point-of-care resources with similar results. Also without the knowledge of database publishers, librarians in Texas tested these resources by selecting the top 10 diagnoses and monitored each tool for frequency of updates on these topics.

Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Methodist Dallas Medical Center has selected its ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, software as its electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets claims to be an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance.

ProVation Order Sets is built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform. A key benefit is continuous updating of clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 600,000 users worldwide.

Located in Dallas, the 515-bed Methodist Dallas Medical Center is a part of the nonprofit Methodist Health System. Home to more than 250 physicians with expertise in more than 50 medical specialties, it is the main teaching and referral center for Methodist Health System and features a Level II Trauma Center and Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Methodist Dallas is fully accredited by the Joint Commission.

The Brazilian Ministries of Health and Education have made evidence-based clinical reference DynaMed available to more than 900,000 healthcare professionals throughout the country. The ministries, in a partnership with the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), the Brazilian Federal Agency for the Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education, have created a portal called Evidence-based Health to provide access to the latest clinical information in order to improve medical decisions and diagnoses.

DynaMed is a clinical reference tool designed for use primarily at the point of care. DynaMed contains clinically-organised summaries for more than 3,200 topics. Daily updates provide the best available evidence available to clinicians making medical decisions. International guidelines and topics make DynaMed a valuable resource.

A recent report in KLAS rated DynaMed higher than other disease reference tools. Survey respondents indicated that DynaMed excelled in the credibility of the information it provided and in the relevance of its information.

Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that the Medical Center of the Rockies has selected its ProVation Medical Software for gastroenterology procedure documentation and coding in its GI labs.

Located in Loveland, Colo., the 148-bed Medical Center of the Rockies is a regional medical center with a full spectrum of services including specialties in cardiology and trauma care. It is home to two intensive care units, a birthing center and a special care nursery, a medical nursing unit, a surgical nursing unit, and full-service radiology and laboratory.

ProVation Medical provides procedure documentation and clinical decision support solutions for hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers. ProVation MD, ProVation MultiCaregiver and ProVation EHR software reduce transcription, paper storage and image printing costs and deliver a high Return on Investment (ROI). ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, put evidence-based healthcare into practice by establishing and maintaining standards of care.

The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters has announced that The Roche Group, a provider of pharmaceutical and diagnostic products and services, has selected Thomson IP Manager to manage the organisation's expanding international patent portfolio. Thomson IP Manager, a premier intellectual asset management (IAM) software solution, will improve company-wide IP work processes and collaboration across the organisation.

Headquartered in Switzerland, Roche is a research-focused company, discovering, developing and providing innovative diagnostic and therapeutic products and services to patients and healthcare professionals worldwide. With twelve patent group sites in Asia, Europe and the US, Roche needs a global solution that will allow it to efficiently and effectively manage its valuable IP asset portfolio, which grows by nearly 500 rights annually.

Roche initiated a global patent group project, taking a democratic approach as part of its selection process. Patent and law professionals evaluated several high-potential IAM software solutions before making the decision to use Thomson IP Manager.

According to Karin Bruehlmann, Head of Controlling, IT & Services Group Patents, The Roche Group, Roche also will utilise the Thomson IP Manager integrated Data Validation Service to proactively identify and correct data discrepancies in their patent portfolio, comparing data against the Thomson Reuters Global Patent Collection. This comprehensive database comprises over 76 million patents for more than 70 issuing authorities. It ensures errors that could affect critical prosecution and maintenance dates can be quickly caught and fixed, reducing the risk of lost rights and costly delays.

Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced a strategic partnership with The Altos Group to advance development of an innovative sepsis mortality reduction programme. Hospitals are currently being enrolled to serve as pilot sites in the programme, which brings together mobile technology, actionable clinical content and clinical change management to enable early sepsis identification and intervention.

The Altos Group is a consulting firm that partners with healthcare institutions to implement change management programmes that substantially improve patient outcomes. Headed by Julie A. Kliger, the firm’s methodology and services have proven particularly effective at impacting sepsis rates. In one case, which was profiled recently by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a 54.5% reduction in average mortality rates was achieved within three years across nine California hospitals.

The sepsis mortality reduction programme focuses on early detection and applying best practices to treating the septic patient. In addition to reducing overall patient mortality, costs and lengths of stay, the goal of the programme is to identify and address the top healthcare-associated infections (HAI) that drive sepsis mortality. This will be accomplished through a three-pronged approach that couples mobile software with actionable content, driven by WK Health's trusted brands as UpToDate, Lexicomp, ProVation Order Sets, and Sentri7, supplemented by change management consulting services.

Drug information provider Elsevier's Gold Standard, US, has announced that Rite Aid Corporation, one of the nation's leading drug store chains, has selected the Gold Standard Drug Database State and Federal module to monitor legislative updates made to prescription medications.

The integration of the Gold Standard Drug Database State and Federal module allows Rite Aid to streamline and automate the process of tracking changing state and federal regulations for Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and legend status, as well as medication-related guidelines. This integration allows Rite Aid to effectively communicate such modifications to its more than 4,700 pharmacies in 31 states and the District of Columbia.

The Gold Standard Drug Database State and Federal module offers a comprehensive, automated means of communicating critical legislative changes. The module provides up-to-date, accurate data that is easily accessible to clinicians who need to make informed decisions that abide by frequently changing state and federal requirements.

The Gold Standard Drug Database State and Federal module includes guidance for State and Federal Controlled Substance Regulations; guidance for FDA Consumer Medicine Information (CMI) Requirements; and Black Box Warning Identifier.

Drug information provider Elsevier / Gold Standard, US, has announced its new Drug Class Overviews, making Clinical Pharmacology more valuable at the point of care.

Clinical Pharmacology Drug Class Overviews are now even more powerful for evaluating formulary decisions and therapeutic drug substitutions. Elsevier / Gold Standard has improved the speed and usability of the content through bulleted summaries and tables, highlighting a variety of critical areas in drug-interaction information.

The new Drug Class Overviews includes a summary in simple bullet format; Pharmacology/Mechanism of Action with key pharmacology and pharmacokinetics and tables to highlight differences; Therapeutic Use, highlighting place in therapy, alternatives within a class, and key clinical differences with labeled, off-label, and not recommended indications; Comparative Efficacy, highlighting randomized control trials for one or more indications; Adverse Reactions/Toxicities summarizes serious adverse events and toxicities; Drug Interactions, helping clinicians determine which drugs to use; and Safety Issues, highlighting all contraindications and indicates BBW’s, REMS, or MedGuides.

Elsevier / Gold Standard uses innovative technologies to provide a complete suite of drug information and decision support solutions. With a tenacious commitment to product quality, Elsevier / Gold Standard solutions empower healthcare organisations, professionals and consumers to meet the most pressing healthcare challenges, improve patient safety and ensure optimal outcomes.

Totally, the AIM quoted digital health and technical solutions company, has signed a strategic partnership agreement with the BMJ Evidence Centre, part of the BMJ Group, to assist the Company in the delivery of the £1.6 million national NHS Shared Decision Making contract that Totally secured and announced in February 2012.

The BMJ Evidence Centre’s clinical information specialists search and appraise the medical literature to provide a robust evidence base. Writers and editors on the consumer health team liaise with clinical experts and patient representatives to deliver practical and innovative shared decision making tools that enable patients to make the right decisions about their own healthcare options.

Under the agreement, the BMJ Evidence centre will provide the evidence base and the editorial for patient decision aids (‘PDA’) in thirty five long term condition disease areas.

These PDAs will sit on top of the interactive web based ‘SANDY’ system, which Totally has built for the NHS and which forms the basis of the National Shared Decision Making platform. Totally will also organise the Medical advisory groups, who will help with scoping the outline of the various PDAs, before the evidence and editorial work begins.

The content of the patient decision aids will also be available via mobile applications and are planned to be embedded into GP databases and linked up to IT systems throughout the NHS via the ‘SANDY’ system.

Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Poudre Valley Hospital has selected its ProVation Medical Software for gastroenterology procedure documentation and coding in its GI labs.

ProVation Medical provides procedure documentation and clinical decision support solutions for hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers. ProVation MD, ProVation MultiCaregiver and ProVation EHR software reduce transcription, paper storage and image printing costs and deliver a high Return on Investment (ROI). ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, puts evidence-based healthcare into practice by establishing and maintaining standards of care.

Located in Fort Collins, CO, the 241-bed Poudre Valley Hospital is a regional medical center serving the residents of northern Colorado, southern Wyoming and western Nebraska.

Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center has selected its ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, software as its electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets is an easily customiable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. It is built upon ProVation Medical’s clinician-designed technology platform. A key benefit is continuous updating of clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, which claims to be the resource of choice for more than 600,000 users worldwide.

Located in Pomona, CA, the 453-bed Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center is a not-for-profit, acute care teaching hospital serving Eastern Los Angeles and Western San Bernardino counties. It offers a full range of services from local primary acute care to highly specialised regional services and is accredited by the Joint Commission.

Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that it has expanded Lippincott’s Nursing Procedures and Skills (LNPS) to include oncology, a new category for the popular nursing reference. A total of 50 of the most critical oncology-specific nursing procedures are included, with the first 25 available immediately and the balance to be incorporated by October.

LNPS claims to be one of the most widely deployed web-based nursing references in use in hospitals and other healthcare institutions. It gives nurses accurate, step-by-step guidance for 1,300 evidence-based procedures. Most procedures are accompanied by video clips and/or high-quality visuals that aid in understanding. The online resource provides skills checklists and competency tests for each procedure to help facilities verify staff competence. Each procedure undergoes a thorough annual review process to ensure the most up-to-date clinical information is provided. Facilities can customise and add procedures to meet their specific needs.

Some of the notable new oncology-specific procedures include anemia management, cardiovascular toxicity management, hypercalcemia emergency care, and six types of chemotherapy administration including intramuscular, intraperitoneal, intrathecal, intravesicular, oral and subcutaneous. In addition to the new oncology-specific procedures, numerous general procedures have been incorporated into the Oncology category to further broaden its scope.

The new Oncology section joins categories such as medical-surgical, critical care, emergency, paediatric, and perioperative to make Lippincott’s Nursing Procedures and Skills one of the most comprehensive nursing procedural references in the industry.

Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced the release of the first e-book editions in The Washington Manual Subspecialty Consult Series. Written by residents/fellows and reviewed by faculty at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the Subspecialty Consult Series includes a total of 11 titles each focused on a different disease area running the gamut from cardiology to hematology and oncology.

The seven revised titles include: Allergy, Asthma and Immunology; Nephrology; Hematology and Oncology; Gastroenterology; Endocrinology; Infectious Disease; and Rheumatology. LWW plans to release all of the other titles in the series in eBook format in concurrence with their regular revisions.

The Washington Manual Subspecialty Consult Series follows the same format and clinical practicality as the Washington Manual of Medical Therapeutics, now in its 33rd edition and established for more than 65 years as the “Bible� of the medical ward. These concise and practical references are tailored for fellows, residents and medical students rotating through their subspecialty services. They are also ideal references for medical professionals specialising in a certain area.

The Washington Manual Subspecialty Consult Series is delivered in a timesaving, quick-reference style. Each volume contains a synopsis of symptoms, signs, and problems encountered in a bulleted format for quick salient points as well as new standards in the treatment for each specialty area. With the advent of eBook availability, the Subspecialty Consult Series will offer the same portability, comprehensiveness, and ease of access that make the Washington Manual of Medical Therapeutics a favourite on-call resource for house staff, faculty, medical students, and other health care professionals around the world.

Alongside the print editions, all 7 titles are available in eBook versions through Amazon Kindle or Barnes and Noble's Nook to have the accessibility of the content anytime, anywhere. With the free Kindle or Nook app content can be downloaded to any iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.

Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced that NHS Education for Scotland has selected DynaMed as its preferred point of care resource for all NHS Scotland staff and students.

NHS Education’s Knowledge Network had offered DynaMed, as well as other point of care resources, to its users but recently selected DynaMed as the primary point of care resource due to its comprehensive coverage and frequent and reliable updates. Another contributing factor to their decision to implement DynaMed as the primary resource was due to a recent report in KLAS that rated DynaMed higher than other disease reference tools. Survey respondents indicated that DynaMed excelled in the credibility of the information it provided and in the relevance of its information.

NHS Education’s subscription to DynaMed includes EBSCO’s Nursing Reference Center and Rehabilitation Reference Center. These resources offer the best available evidence-based clinical reference tools for nursing and rehabilitation practices. These, teamed with DynaMed, offer NHS Education with a full suite of point of care resources.

DynaMed is a clinical reference tool designed for use primarily at the point of care. It contains clinically-organised summaries for more than 3,200 topics. Daily updates provide the best available evidence available to clinicians making medical decisions. DynaMed integrates with electronic health records and is available via mobile devices.

BMJ Informatica, part of the BMJ Group, has launched a new software tool named Prescribing+ designed to help support primary care providers and commissioners with prescribing budget responsibilities to reduce prescribing errors in GP practices.

Prescribing+ has been developed by BMJ Informatica in conjunction with Eclipse Solutions. The tool is projected to provide clinicians with immediate support when initiating acute and repeat prescriptions by suggesting safe, appropriate and cost efficient alternative medications including links to the BNF and MHRA.

It has been designed so that it doesn’t interrupt or delay the prescribing process during patient consultations. According to the company, GPs can be confident that decisions are based on the latest data about the effectiveness and pricing of any medicines and they are alerted immediately to safety recalls.

Prescribing+ also provides a specialised auditing feature enabling a desktop review with access to the patient record and drug optimisation details.

Users of Prescribing+ also reportedly benefit from powerful reporting tools which keep practices up to date with all aspects of performance and savings and provide two-way feedback between medicines management teams and GPs. This helps commissioners and GPs to work together, optimising the use of medicines and making sure that finite resources are concentrated on delivering the best patient outcomes.

Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Essentia Health has successfully implemented its ProVation Medical Software to enhance workflow efficiencies and quality of care within its gastroenterology and pulmonary services. This deployment marks the 1,000th implementation of the specialised documentation and coding solution.

ProVation MD was first implemented in 1996 at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, and the company has experienced steady year-over-year growth since then. Ranked number one in the Best in KLAS awards for six consecutive years, ProVation MD is now deployed in four countries and has been expanded to cover 13 medical specialties.

ProVation Medical provides procedure documentation and clinical decision support solutions for hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers. ProVation MD, ProVation MultiCaregiver and ProVation EHR software reduce transcription, paper storage and image printing costs and deliver a high Return on Investment (ROI). ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, puts evidence-based healthcare into practice by establishing and maintaining standards of care.

Scope eKnowledge Center (Scope), a content enhancement and knowledge services company, has announced that it has surpassed the 1,500-mark in delivering cost-effective, customised order sets to its clients. Since first offering this service to clients in 2009, Scope has gained invaluable experience in creating electronic order sets as well as reconciling paper order sets against default order sets for various Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) providers.

According to Scope’s President, Tram Venkatraman, OrdEHRSet was launched in response to the demand from clinical decision support system (CDSS)/electronic health record (EHR) players for reliable healthcare and medical knowledge services. These players are increasingly willing to outsource the development and standardisation of order set terms and a host of related tasks to qualified partners such as Scope who will help them address the problem of shrinking clinical workforce and long service delivery timelines, enabling them to serve a range of hospitals, healthcare providers and information savvy consumers.

OrdEHRSet offers faster, accurate and high-quality order set content to clients. Key features of OrdEHRSet include the standardisation of medical terms used in hospitals for easy compatibility with CPOE provider systems and the incorporation of appropriate and reliable evidence-based medicine (EBM) content in order sets for aiding healthcare providers in decision making. Other value added features include creation of disease and drug profiles, drug safety alerts, clinical conditions documentation, new evidence alerts, and creation and maintenance of EBM-integrated disease databases, added Scope’s SVP, M. A. Eswaran.

Dr. Ram Deepak, Scope’s Operations Manager – Medical Content, noted that Scope’s achievement of delivering more than 1,500 order sets, typically responding to clients’ fast turnaround time requirements, confirms the company’s confidence in the benefits of OrdEHRSet. OrdEHRSet leverages Scope’s cost-effective, on-demand access to highly skilled and experienced doctors, medical practitioners and consulting partner ecosystem, as well as experience in handling diverse CPOE provider modules. Scope’s deep research capabilities enable the identification of appropriate EBM content for niche medical specialties that often pose challenges to CPOE implementers/system integrators.

Scope eKnowledge Center, a Quatrro Group company, is an award winning provider of outsourced, cost-effective content enhancement and knowledge services to the global information industry. Scope uses a combination of deep subject matter expertise in a number of business and STM domains, innovative technology and proprietary intellectual property to provide world class services. In operation for over 24 years, Scope has built a clientele loyal to its abstracting, indexing, semantic enrichment, database/directory development and content authoring solutions.

Scope is the publisher of the daily Knowledgespeak newsletter, and authoritative news service focusing on the STM information industry.

Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that O’Bleness Memorial Hospital has selected its ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, software as its electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. ProVation Order Sets is built upon ProVation Medical’s clinician-designed technology platform. A key benefit is continuous updating of clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 600,000 users worldwide.

Located in Athens, Ohio, O'Bleness Memorial Hospital is a private not-for-profit hospital serving the residents of southeastern Ohio with the latest clinical technologies and comprehensive medical services. It is the cornerstone hospital of O’Bleness Health System, a regional network of physicians, nurses, technicians, support staff and modern facilities.

STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, and CAE Healthcare, a medical simulation and healthcare learning solutions provider, have announced a new electronic nursing education solution to be made available in July. The new offering features evidence-based scenarios fully-programmed for CAE's METI line of human patient simulators, including an integrated electronic health record (EHR) and a library of teaching support resources to guide the student through every step of simulation.

This is the first product to result from the Elsevier-CAE collaboration, announced in May 2011. Elsevier will demonstrate the new product at the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning Conference, June 20-23, in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

Elsevier and CAE Healthcare have combined the latter's METI human patient simulators with the former's suite of nursing simulation products, including the Simulation Learning System (SLS). This online toolkit helps instructors and facilitators effectively standardise and incorporate simulation into their nursing curriculum.

The SLS for Medical-Surgical Nursing provides more than 50 evidence-based scenarios, expanding the scope of topics covered in the nursing curriculum. Each simulation is presented in three steps. Preparation includes detailed outlines to guide educators through the staging of the simulation, identifying key resources to prepare educators, students, and the simulator.

Scenario is fully programmed for METI simulators and comes with instructions for initiating and progressing the simulation experience. Descriptions of the patient's condition for each phase of the scenario reportedly help nursing educators conduct the most realistic simulation sessions possible.

Debriefing offers guided discussion questions for each scenario to facilitate collaborative evaluation and analysis, directing students to corresponding content in their Elsevier textbooks for review and practice.

The combined solution is available to nursing education programs and schools through Elsevier or CAE Healthcare. Customers who previously purchased a METI human patient simulator can integrate Elsevier's SLS to have the complete solution.

Information and point-of-care solutions provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Memorial Medical Center of West Michigan has selected its ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, software as its electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets is an order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. It is built upon ProVation Medical’s clinician-designed technology platform. A key benefit is continuous updating of clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 600,000 users worldwide.

Located in Ludington, MI, the 87-bed Memorial Medical Center of West Michigan is an acute care hospital providing residents of Mason County and surrounding communities with services including inpatient medical, surgical, step-down, obstetrical and critical care, as well outpatient laboratory, cancer and hematology and diagnostics.

Information and point-of-care solutions provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Austin Health has selected its ProVation Medical Software for gastroenterology procedure documentation and coding. Located in Victoria, Australia, Austin Health is the major provider of tertiary health services, health professional education and research in northeast Melbourne.

ProVation Medical provides procedure documentation and clinical decision support solutions for hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers. ProVation MD, ProVation MultiCaregiver and ProVation EHR software reduce transcription, paper storage and image printing costs and deliver a high Return on Investment (ROI). ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, puts evidence-based healthcare into practice by establishing and maintaining standards of care.

ProVation Medical is part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

Information and point-of-care solutions provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced the availability of the new print edition of the Nursing2013 Drug Handbook, the best-selling drug reference for nurses. First published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) in 1980, the Nursing Drug Handbook claims to be the first drug handbook designed specifically for nurses.

The Nursing2013 Drug Handbook offers nurses the ability to find any drug fact in 15 seconds or less. Nearly 900 drug monographs addressing more than 3,000 generic and brand name drugs are featured. This edition adds 30 new drugs and more than 3,000 changes to clinical information including new Black Box Warnings, dosage information, overdose signs and symptoms, and adverse reactions.

Monographs are consistently formatted for ease-of-use and focus on the practical information that nurses need. A comprehensive collection of pill images – more than 430 – is also included to help nurses confidently identify their patients' medications. The handbook allows nurses to search for desired drugs alphabetically, by pharmacologic class and by therapeutic class.

The Nursing2013 Drug Handbook is available immediately by visiting the LWW eStore at www.LWW.com. It also is available as a mobile application for iPhone, iPad, iTouch, and Android devices as a download on Apple iTunes and Google Play.

Ovid, a US-based provider of information solutions, will introduce new capabilities in OvidMD, designed to meet the needs of medical librarians and the clinicians they serve. These will be unveiled at this year’s Medical Librarians Association (MLA) annual meeting in Seattle on May 19 – 22, marking the first anniversary of OvidMD, the company’s research platform of aggregated medical resources. Ovid is part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

OvidMD seeks to put research into practice, bringing the library resources to the clinician. Users search Ovid MEDLINE, UpToDate, evidence-based databases, with subscribed resources from Ovid's repository of aggregated, premium clinical journals and books to deliver clinically relevant search results. OvidMD is said to be the only tool that allows physicians to access information from UpToDate for quick clinical answers or Ovid for deeper research, all in one interface.

Highlights of the OvidMD enhancements with new clinical search productivity tools include Typeahead that Thinks Ahead; Clinical Focus Navigators; OvidMD Web App for the iPad and iPhone; Best Bets in Search Results; Shortcuts from ‘What Am I Searching?’; Library Co-Branding; OpenURL graphics; and Improved UpToDate Search Results (mid-June).

Attendees at the MLA annual conference can also view peer-reviewed open access content from Medknow and PubMed Central coming soon to OvidSP. Visitors to the Wolters Kluwer Health - Ovid’s booth #301 can register to win the latest in technology devices at Ovid’s first-ever Wii Home Run Derby.

US-based construction information provider Reed Construction Data and construction focused technology firm InfoTech International have unveiled cūbus, a new, fully-integrated market intelligence solution. The application is being officially launched at the AIA 2012 Expo, May 17-19, 2012, Booth #1731, in Washington, DC. Complimentary custom market intelligence reports will be offered to manufacturers who schedule a preview of the product.

cūbus provides visibility into the construction market through live project information from Reed Construction Data’s database. Packaged in a visually intuitive and interactive format, the market intelligence application is said to immediately deliver intelligence reports relating to competition, market penetration and product demand.

According to Reed, a significant benefit of cūbus is its ability to get instant answers in reports, without time-consuming setup of preset terms. Building product manufacturers can now dynamically see reports for any market segment of their choice and drill into the information at any time to view the actual projects driving the data points. cūbus enables data-driven decisions for action and the ability to measure the results in real time.

Reed is the inaugural strategic partner of the American Institute of Architects. Its portfolio of products and services includes national, regional and local construction data, building product information, construction cost data, market intelligence solutions and advertising channels to construction industry professionals in the US and Canada.

The Intellectual Property & Science division of Thomson Reuters has announced its commitment to support R&D pharmaceutical leaders with a new oncology application for mobile tablet devices, already in use by AstraZeneca executives. The rich visualisation dashboard leverages content from Thomson Reuters Cortellis, the company's flagship life sciences platform, and provides real-time data for clinical oncology drug research and development activities.

The solution provides a series of oncology-based clinical dashboards that provide competitive information that quickly answers common questions in drug development. It is platform independent and accessible via the Internet. Mobile tablet-based devices are the primary method used for accessing the solution.

Users see at-a-glance, side-by-side comparisons of adverse events for drugs already on the market or in clinical trials. They get a deeper understanding of the drugs and how they are being targeted for diseases by segment. The comparisons visualise the level of current research and development activity around an indication, whether by company or mechanism of action, together with information on ongoing clinical trials.

The new applications represent the initial output in an ongoing partnership between Thomson Reuters and AstraZeneca, with other applications due to be released this year. The Thomson Reuters Life Sciences Professional Services team is working on similar innovative projects for other customers too.

Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Duke University Health System has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support as its electronic order sets solution.

ProVation Order Sets provides peer-reviewed evidence-based order set content. Proprietary authoring and management tools allow for online review and management of order sets, building consensus among physicians, driving standardization of practice and computerised physician order entry (CPOE) adoption.

ProVation Medical provides procedure documentation and clinical decision support solutions for hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers. ProVation MD, ProVation MultiCaregiver and ProVation EHR software reduce transcription, paper storage and image printing costs and deliver a high Return on Investment (ROI). ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, puts evidence-based healthcare into practice by establishing and maintaining standards of care.

Drug database provider Elsevier/Gold Standard, US, has announced an agreement with Glass Box Analytics to become the exclusive distributor of a new price type, Predictive Acquisition Cost (PAC). Glass Box Analytics represents a strategic joint venture between Pathria Analytics LLC and ChainDrugStore.net. Together they bring advanced predictive analytics techniques along with deep industry domain expertise to provide solutions that address the most challenging issues facing businesses on a day to day basis.

Glass Box Analytics developed PAC to address the industry need for a pricing standard that more closely tracks true drug acquisition cost. PAC employs predictive analytics techniques to estimate acquisition cost considering various factors, including industry MAC benchmarks, published price lists, existing price benchmarks, drug dispensation metrics, supply-demands measures, and survey-based acquisition costs.

AWP has long been the standard price type used throughout the industry to set contract terms and adjudicate claims. In recent years, however, industry leaders have expressed concerns about the accuracy and reliability of AWP and have called for a price type that is transparent, accessible, comprehensive, timely, and immune to manipulation.

PAC will be included in the Gold Standard Drug Database product and price file and as a stand-alone module. In addition to PAC, which is the estimate of the acquisition cost for each drug group, range will be provided to indicate the associated level of accuracy. A PAC retail value will also be generated for each drug group, which can be used as a replacement for AWP in existing ‘generic effective rate’ based contract vehicles.

Glass Box Analytics and Elsevier/Gold Standard will hold complimentary webinars about PAC on March 8, 2012 and March 22, 2012.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced a new agreement with Isabel Healthcare. The deal allows direct linking between the Isabel diagnosis tool and the evidence-based point-of-care tool DynaMed, allowing mutual customers to link from one resource to the other. The agreement brings the evidence-based content from DynaMed into the diagnostic process and allows users easier access regardless of whether a search begins in Isabel or DynaMed.

Isabel Healthcare provides a web-based application called Isabel, the industry leading diagnosis decision support system designed to provide essential diagnosis and treatment information at the point of need. For a given set of signs and symptoms, Isabel presents the clinician with a list of likely diagnoses to consider, and each diagnosis is linked to knowledge to help with further investigation, potential testing and treatment. The Isabel system has been extensively validated and is currently being used by leading healthcare systems across North America improving efficiency in decision making.

DynaMed is a clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other healthcare professionals for use at the point-of-care. With clinically-organised summaries for more than 3,200 topics, DynaMed provides the latest content and resources with validity, relevance and convenience, making DynaMed an indispensable resource for answering most clinical questions during practice.

Updated daily, DynaMed editors monitor the content of over 500 medical journals on a daily basis. Each article is evaluated for clinical relevance and scientific validity. The new evidence is then integrated with existing content, and overall conclusions are changed as appropriate, representing a synthesis of the best available evidence. Through this process of Systematic Literature Surveillance, the best available evidence determines the content of DynaMed.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, and PatientKeeper, a provider of physician healthcare information systems, have announced a collaboration in which Elsevier will integrate its clinical decision support (CDS) and analytics resources into PatientKeeper's CPOE software product. The collaboration brings evidence-based clinical content into the physician's workflow through PatientKeeper's physician-friendly computerised physician order entry (CPOE) system.

This collaboration will provide PatientKeeper's physician users with value-added content that will enable them to make better and faster patient care decisions that lead to improved outcomes. The collaboration delivers deeper integration with 'context specific' CDS information from many of Elsevier's solutions, including Gold Standard's Clinical Pharmacology and integrated Drug Database, the Pinpoint clinical analytics suite from MEDai, and Elsevier's Order Sets solution, which will launch later in 2012.

Additionally, Elsevier will provide PatientKeeper access to Elsevier's CPM interdisciplinary, evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, and Elsevier's ClinicalKey, a new clinical insight engine which rapidly helps physicians find the most relevant information to answer complex clinical questions.

PatientKeeper CPOE and all of the PatientKeeper applications were designed to fit seamlessly into a physician's existing workflow. Physicians are able to accomplish all of the things they normally do throughout the day – pre-rounding, ordering, documenting, signing-out, charging, etc. – using a single, fully integrated system. Currently, more than 70 hospitals and health systems across the US and Canada have purchased PatientKeeper CPOE to streamline the ordering process for physicians and drive meaningful physician use of a critical healthcare information technology.

PatientKeeper and Elsevier believe that collaborating to provide additional content and tools within PatientKeeper's physician-friendly CPOE application will lead to high levels of sustained adoption and a happy, more effective physician community.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the launch of TargetInsights, an online decision support tool that enables scientists to search, monitor and stay up-to-date with the latest biological insights reported in scientific literature. It provides extensive information coverage and unique data contextualisation, supporting users to identify, prioritise and validate biological targets faster and with less risk.

TargetInsights was specifically designed to overcome information challenges during the discovery process of target identification and validation, where scientists need to support ideation and findings with extensive reviews of the scientific literature. The tool enables full text entity and relationship searching of over 5,000 international biomedical journals covering over 800,000 journal articles and conference abstracts per year. Publications covered by TargetInsights are indexed with approximately 9 million controlled terms within nine taxonomies (genes, proteins and RNA; chemicals and drugs; diseases; biological functions; organ systems; tissue types; cell components; organisms; and cell lines).

TargetInsights seeks to support the workflows of molecular biologists, preclinical pharmacologists, discovery chemists and bioinformaticians, among other user groups. Recognising the need for information immediacy among these users, it takes just 10 days from an article being published to it being indexed and appearing in TargetInsights. To support search accuracy, tools are provided to hone and visualise index term relationship searching.

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Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), a Wolters Kluwer Health business, has announced that Willis-Knighton Health System has selected the expert clinical content in Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills and Lippincott's Nursing Advisor to help their nurses deliver exceptional patient care.

Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills gives nurses accurate, step-by-step guidance for more than 1,200 evidence-based procedures. The online resource provides skills checklists and competency tests for each procedure to help facilities verify staff competence. Each procedure undergoes a thorough annual review process to ensure the most up-to-date clinical information is provided. Facilities can customise and add procedures to meet their specific needs.

Lippincott's Nursing Advisor is designed to provide nurses quick and efficient access to the specific information needed to provide optimal patient care, including expert content from the best-selling Nursing Drug Handbook. Drug, disease, treatment, diagnostic test, and signs and symptoms monographs provide essential information to nurses quickly in their daily workflow. Customisation functionality allows hospital protocols to be added, improving staff awareness, compliance and care standardisation.

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STM publisher Thieme Publishing Group, Germany, has announced that 'Thieme Teaching Assistant,' a web-based platform for teachers and students, launched in 2008, now contains full-colour images from three of Thieme's bestselling physiology and pharmacology titles.

'Thieme Teaching Assistant Physiology' includes 200 full-colour images from Physiology-An Illustrated Review, by Roger TannerThies, and over 700 high-quality images from Michael et al.'s Fundamentals of Medical Physiology.

'Thieme Teaching Assistant Pharmacology' features all images from Pharmacology: An Illustrated Review, by Mark A. Simmons. The text contains content students must master for classroom and USMLE success.

The Thieme Teaching Assistant is projected as an ideal companion to the Thieme E-Book Library, (ebooks.thieme.com), the online destination for knowledge in medicine and related basic sciences. This resource enables lecturers to incorporate dynamic visuals into their presentations and course packs to present complex concepts with unprecedented clarity and to enhance and reinforce their students' knowledge. The platform can be accessed live in the classroom for reference during lectures. Students can use the clear, full-colour images for review, study, and self-assessment.

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Business information provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that its Micromedex Mobile Drug Information App has been included in the first-ever WIRED App Guide to 400 Essential Apps in the 'My Favorite Apps, The Physician' review section.

The publication, in an effort to provide mobile application users reviews of essential tools for every type of smartphone, boiled hundreds of thousands of available apps down to the 400 best. Produced by the editors of WIRED magazine in collaboration with Gizmodo, the team tested and rated more than 400 apps for the first-ever WIRED App Guide. The special issue rates apps on the 10-point WIRED performance scale, noting 'WIRED' and 'TIRED' features, price and on which platforms each app is available.

The Micromedex free Drug Information App contains drug information, including generic names, common trade names, adult and paediatric dosages, precautions, adverse effects and toxicology. It was recently selected to Apple's 'Apps for Healthcare Professionals' category in iTunes. Designed for both the iPhone and iPad, the Micromedex Drug Information App has reportedly received over 400 ratings in the Apple iTunes Store and has an average of 3.5 stars. It was also named to the Top 20 Free iPhone Medical Apps for Healthcare Professionals by the iMedicalAppsTeam.

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Information provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that the Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center (BMHMC) has successfully completed integration of Micromedex CareNotes into the hospital's Siemens Soarian Clinicals platform in order to improve workflow efficiency and patient education standardisation.

The Micromedex integrated CareNotes solution provides BMHMC's clinicians with unlimited access to patient specific education handouts, including Pre-Care, Inpatient and Discharge Education, from every patient specific screen within the Soarian clinical architecture, based on patient clinical parameters. The integration of patient education into the Soarian Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system provides flexible access to the right patient education resources at the right time, all within the clinician's workflow, improving the consistency, efficiency and relevancy of patient education.

The integrated CareNotes solution at BMHMC is a joint-technology offering using Health Care Systems, Inc. (HCS) Connect Service infrastructure and Micromedex evidence-based clinical decision support and patient education content. HCS software is designed to provide the clinician with patient specific and knowledge based information that integrates into the clinician workflow. Software developed by HCS is in use in more than 800 healthcare organisations, improving information access, and medication reconciliation, while enabling meaningful use via certified Electronic Health Records (EHR).

The CareNotes integrated solution provides hospitals with design flexibility and customised access to evidence-based patient education. Hospitals have the ability to customise, print, store, archive and retrieve electronic copies of educational documents to support organisational objectives within the EMR workflow - saving time and providing clinical consistency. The solution supports Meaningful Use Objectives and provides clinically relevant, patient specific education.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced that its evidence-based point-of-care clinical reference tool DynaMed has been rated highest in its category by healthcare providers. A new report on clinical decision support resources by KLAS, a research firm that specialises in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors, rated disease reference tools in a number of categories. According to the report, DynaMed was rated 10 points higher in KLAS than any other disease reference product in the study.

In the KLAS survey, customers of each resource were surveyed in a variety of areas including credibility, relevance, electronic medical record (EMR) integration and influence on decisions, as well as standardisation of care and how well the resource met the overall needs of users. Survey respondents indicated that DynaMed excelled in the credibility of the information it provided and in the relevance of its information and bested the other two resources in 24 of 25 measures.

Disease references such as DynaMed are used by clinicians at the point of care to access the best available evidence for thousands of clinical topics. DynaMed is updated daily and can be integrated into any EMR system. It is used by more than half a million clinicians in over 125 countries. More than 4,000 physicians and other healthcare professionals across 60 specialties contribute to the resource and more than 200,000 medical articles are summarised in DynaMed - providing doctors and other healthcare providers with access to the latest clinical evidence.

Access to the latest clinical information at the point of care and within EMRs is having an impact on clinical decision support, which was the overall focus of the KLAS report.

Earlier in October 2011, DynaMed was named the most current point-of-care reference tool in a study published in the British Medical Journal. The study looked at how quickly five point-of-care products updated new evidence.

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UpToDate, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has released a downloadable local version of its iPhone App, UpToDate MobileComplete. The fastest mobile version of UpToDate, MobileComplete provides clinicians with access to evidence-based, practical recommendations - even offline, where there is no network connection (Wi-Fi connection required for initial download and new version updates).

Since the launch of UpToDate Mobile in July 2011, more than 42,000 clinicians have downloaded the mobile application for iPhone. The on-demand application allows physicians and clinicians to search UpToDate's extensive clinical content from an iPhone using a network connection.

With UpToDate MobileComplete, clinicians can access the clinical knowledge contained within the UpToDate database locally, without a persistent network connection. To ensure users access the most current recommendations, the App will verify that requested content is the most recent when a network connection is present.

UpToDate is widely accepted by more than 450,000 clinicians worldwide for its ability to improve health outcomes by providing current, comprehensive clinical knowledge, including treatment recommendations based on the best medical evidence. Created by more than 4,800 editors, authors and peer reviewers from leading medical institutions, UpToDate hand-searches more than 460 journals to ensure that the most recent information and findings are incorporated into the content.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that Pharmacy OneSource has launched Schedule OneSource, a new application for pharmacists.

Schedule OneSource helps pharmacy directors generate and manage staff schedules quickly and easily, with real-time data and integrated email communication. It helps hospital pharmacies better utilise staff time and key competencies by streamlining their scheduling process.

A 'smart scheduling' feature provides drop-down menus that present available and qualified staff for filling open shifts. Schedule forecasting builds schedules for up to two years in advance with known future events, enabling advanced planning and earlier confirmation from team members.

Schedule OneSource is a web-based programme with single sign-on capabilities, requiring no hardware or software installation on site. With touchscreen capabilities, employees can login to submit time-off requests, view schedules, confirm or communicate shift changes, anywhere, anytime with a computer, smartphone or tablet.

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The Coordination for the Improvement of Personnel in Higher Education (CAPES) has expanded its agreement with the Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters to include the provision of clinical content to Brazil's Sentinel Hospital Network.

Through CAPES, Thomson Reuters provides its Micromedex solutions - including evidence-based information on drugs and drug interactions, disease management, toxicology, alternative medicine, and intravenous drug compatibility - to Brazil's academia and, now, its hospital pharmaco-vigilance network.

CAPES, a federal agency affiliated with Brazil's Ministry of Education, is responsible for the Brazilian post-graduate academic system. It supports, evaluates and regulates academic programmes with the aim of achieving standards of excellence.

The Sentinel Hospital Network is a project supported and funded by ANVISA, the National Health Surveillance Agency in Brazil. ANVISA is an independently administered, financially autonomous regulatory agency managed by a Collegiate Board of Directors. Its network spans the country and will add more hospitals as they meet the criteria to become participants.

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UpToDate, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced the addition of General Surgery to its clinical knowledge system. Subscribers to UpToDate can now access clinical information and evidence-based recommendations in 19 specialties.

UpToDate is an evidence-based resource that improves patient outcomes by providing physicians with fast, accurate clinical answers to help them make the right decisions at the point of care. Beta testing by 339 general surgeons has shown that UpToDate answers 94 percent of general surgeons' clinical questions and 87 percent of their surgery-specific questions.

Editors-in-Chief of the new General Surgery content are Dr. Raphael E Pollock and Dr. David Soybel. These editors, along with 19 section editors, worked to develop topics that cover all the major areas of General Surgery. These include abdominal wall and hernia, bariatric and metabolic, breast, burn, colorectal, endocrine, head and neck, pancreatic and hepatobiliary, plastic and reconstructive, skin and soft tissue, thoracic, trauma, upper GI, and vascular surgery. Also included are sections on minimally invasive surgery, as well as anesthesia and analgesia, general surgical principles and surgical quality and safety.

Widely accepted by more than 450,000 clinicians worldwide, UpToDate improves health outcomes by providing clinicians with current, comprehensive clinical knowledge, including treatment recommendations based on the best medical evidence. Created by more than 4,800 editors, authors and peer reviewers from leading medical institutions, UpToDate monitors more than 460 journals to ensure that the most recent information and recommendations are incorporated into the system.

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Article evaluation services provider Faculty of 1000 (F1000), UK, and DynaMed have announced a partnership to better serve the needs of medical professionals looking for rapid access to the best available medical evidence. The partnership expands the DynaMed community to more than 4,000 medical experts adding to the already extensive coverage of specialties in the point-of-care clinical reference tool. The partnership also leverages the expertise of DynaMed and F1000 in assessing the latest medical evidence to highlight research that changes the practice of medicine.

F1000 is an online service that identifies important articles based on the opinions of global leaders in biology and medicine who make up the F1000 Faculty - an international network of 10,000 experts of which over 2,200 are practicing clinicians. These researchers and clinicians select and evaluate the best articles in their chosen specialties, emphasising the key findings and placing the work in context; essentially providing post-publication peer-review. More than 110,000 article evaluations across medicine and biology from more than 3,500 peer-reviewed journals have been published by F1000 to date.

In addition to writing evaluations of important articles, Faculty Members also assign classifications, where relevant, that further identify key features of the articles selected. Articles classified as 'Changes Clinical Practice' identify research papers that have the immediate potential to change the practice of medicine. F1000's ability to immediately assess and update a clinical topic with the best available evidence complements DynaMed, which is updated daily and used worldwide by clinicians and other healthcare providers to access the latest evidence-based information.

In August, DynaMed introduced the identification of 'practice-changing DynaMed updates' and developed a process with McMaster University's Health Information Research Unit in which more than 1,000 practicing physicians from 61 disciplines in 77 countries identify the most important evidence changing practice. The new practice-changing updates filter from DynaMed allows users to display only those topics that include updates most likely to change clinical practice.

F1000 will expand the community of practicing clinicians by thousands and enhance the identification Practice-Changing DynaMed Updates with even greater global input. This is especially important for meeting the needs of clinicians across all levels of clinical care, all types of clinical settings, and geographic regions with variations in available resources.

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Serials Solutions, a business unit of the US-based ProQuest LLC, has announced enhancements to its 360 Counter, 360 Resource Manager and 360 Consortium Edition management services. The enhancements improve the management, workflow and assessment of a library's collection of electronic resources, enabling staff to realise even greater efficiencies and make more informed collection development decisions.

Serials Solutions has enhanced 360 Counter and the 360 Counter Data Retrieval Service (DRS) to now support vendor-supplied data for eBooks and Journals from Archive collections, and updated the reporting interface to support the aggregation and evaluation of these new data elements. As a result, librarians will now have a more sophisticated analysis of valuable e-resource data available to make better-informed collection decisions.

The reporting enhancements made to Serials Solutions 360 Resource Manager, which include the addition of unique identifiers in all reports, will provide librarians with more consistent, comprehensive data to further optimise their e-resource management. In addition, menu manager, cost tracking and other interface enhancements offer greater flexibility for librarians to track and integrate collection data with other library systems, further improving communication and workflow.

Serials Solutions also recently created a new Resource Sharing and Inheritance Report to allow consortium managers to view sharing and inheritance activities across the consortium profiles in all 360 Consortium Edition services, including 360 Search and 360 Resource Manager.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that Houston Healthcare has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the electronic order set solution at Houston Medical Center and Perry Hospital.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. ProVation Order Sets is built upon ProVation Medical's award-winning, clinician-designed technology platform. One of its primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 450,000 users worldwide.

A One-Click Updates tool is stated to leverage UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a unique, structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 9,000 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 77,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 328,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allows for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Two indispensable medical series - Oxford Desk Reference and Oxford Specialist Handbooks – have been added to Oxford Medicine Online. The two bestselling medical series are publishing this October on Oxford Medicine Online, bringing comprehensive guidelines and current best practice to the fingertips of medical practitioners.

The Oxford Desk Reference Online series offers the latest evidence-based guidelines and current best practice instantly. Having sold more than 9,5000 print copies in the last 4 years, the popular series has been described as ‘indispensable’ in providing the latest research on a range of topics in clinical medicine, including subjects such as Nephrology, Clinical Genetics, and Rheumatology.

Each resource in the series includes the full-text of the print edition, illustrations and photographs, and links to all referenced material via PubMed, ISI and Crossref.

The Oxford Specialist Handbooks are a collection of comprehensive pocket guides to difficult and challenging areas of medical and surgical practice. Designed to give an overview of clearly defined procedures, skills, guidelines and technologies, Oxford Specialist Handbooks also provide practical tips and case studies to supplement hands-on experience.

Fifty five Oxford Specialist Handbook titles will be published on www.oxfordmedicine.com in October, with a further 20 titles being made available over the next 12 months. All of the titles feature full text of the print edition, illustrations and photographs, and links to all referenced material via PubMed, ISI and CrossRef.

Elsevier / CPM Resource Center (CPM), a firm developing clinical decision support tools for healthcare, has announced the availability of CPM CarePoints Emergency. The product is a new component of the CPM CarePoints collection, a pre-built, implementation-ready solution that provides a framework for evidence-based care and documentation tools across clinical domains.

With over 125 evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, CPM CarePoints Emergency is organised through utilisation of the CPM Framework and is designed to integrate evidence-based content into practice in order to support clinical decision-making within an emergency department setting. The solution contains content for the adult and paediatric population, as guidelines range from abdominal pain to upper extremity injury, while content includes information on triage, patient profile, risk screening, primary and secondary clinical assessment and procedure/intervention summaries.

CarePoint Emergency can be integrated with other ‘CarePoints’ within the CPM CarePoints solution – inpatient, paediatrics, obstetrics and critical care – to provide a key benefit of a comprehensive, seamless workflow between departments and care venues. When integrated, the overall solution offers clinical decision support, advancing the use of health information technology, making meaningful the risk screening, planning, recording and tracking of recommended care steps and monitoring a patient’s condition meaningful.

Other key benefits include potential reduction in re-admission rates; improvement in quality of care and patient safety; strategic decision making regarding a patient’s admittance; seamless transition of care and interoperability; and support of standardisation and consistency of care between departments.

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Thomson Reuters, a US-based provider of information for healthcare professionals, has announced that drug information for clinicians in the UK and Italy is now available in its Micromedex clinical reference solution.

The comprehensive content of Micromedex 2.0 is now coupled with the UK's Electronic Medicines Compendium Summary of Product Characteristics (SPCs) and Dialogo sui Farmaci's AIFA-approved Italian drug file. Customers can search on commercial or generic drug names to access this new information.

The new content delivers UK-approved information on dose, therapeutic indications, possible side effects and more in the familiar, consistent Micromedex format.

The new Italian drug file delivers AIFA-approved indications and limitations, AIFA prescribing criteria such as form, dose, reimbursement class, price, route of administration and packaging, as well as information about off-patent drugs, MINSAN and ATC codes. More than 3,500 hospitals and healthcare institutions in 85 countries rely on the rigorously researched, evidenced-based clinical information of Micromedex.

Inclusion of this information for the UK and Italy is part of an ongoing Micromedex development programme to support local clinical decision-making around the world. The Micromedex 2.0 interface is available in nine languages.

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Wiley-Blackwell, the STM and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., US, has launched the first mobile application for UCL Hospitals Injectable Medicines Administration Guide, accessible via iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, as well as a version for Blackberry.

The global publisher is launching the app in conjunction with MedHand International AB, a provider of mobile knowledge for medical professionals. MedHand International seeks to provide the most user friendly, flexible and secure architecture for the presentation of information on any type of computing device running any type of operating system.

The UCL Hospitals Injectable Medicines Administration Guide provides key information and advice needed for the safe and effective administration of many injectable medicines.

Projected to be a must have for nurses and other health professionals, this vital reference is now available to download on mobile devices. Information is arranged alphabetically and tabulated for quick reference.

The mobile app provides active links to compatible and incompatible drugs, references, tables, and various other sections of the text, allowing for simple navigation and ease of use. The app offers the convenience of being accessible at any time, providing the ability to access important information at the point of care.

Covering all the essential information on the important aspects of administering medicines by injection, the UCL Hospitals Injectable Medicines Administration Guide is also available in a print and online format.

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Thomson Reuters, a US-based provider of information for healthcare professionals, has launched Infection Xpert, a clinical intelligence dashboard. The tool is designed to help infection preventionists (IPs) manage and reduce hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), capture and submit mandated infection reporting metrics, and analyse hospital infection data to improve patient safety.

Infection Xpert uses evidence-based clinical decision support (CDS) rules to identify medical threats earlier. For instance, the tool automatically identifies patients exhibiting signs of a serious infection and in need of immediate attention. More than 70 hospitals now use this technology to monitor patients in real-time for high-risk conditions.

The Infection Xpert solution includes a library of pre-built CDS rules developed using Micromedex evidence-based reference processes. These rules cover high-priority categories such as multi-drug resistant organisms, clostridium difficile infection, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus infection, and CDC-defined HAIs such as central line-associated bloodstream infection.

Using data aggregated from disparate information systems throughout the hospital, Infection Xpert seeks to present IPs with a single view of comprehensive data about their patients. This includes critical lab values, medication lists, vital signs, microbiology reports, demographics and transcribed reports. With Infection Xpert, they can submit, collect and report National Healthcare Safety Network event and denominator data.

The IP also can access patient-specific Micromedex reference information with a single click. With real-time access to comprehensive patient data and reference content, IPs are seen to be equipped with all the information they need to make fully informed treatment decisions.

Infection Xpert, part of the Clinical Xpert suite of workflow solutions can be integrated within any hospital IT environment.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that Carson-Tahoe Regional Healthcare has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as its electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. ProVation Order Sets is built upon ProVation Medical’s clinician-designed technology platform. One of its primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 450,000 users worldwide.

A One-Click Updates tool featured by ProVation Order Sets is stated to leverage UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 9,000 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 77,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 328,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allows for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.

Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced that its evidence-based point-of-care clinical reference tool DynaMed has been shown to be the most current point-of-care reference tool. A study published recently in the British Medical Journal looked at how quickly five point-of-care products updated new evidence.

The study addressed the importance of incorporating the best available evidence into the clinical workflow and the impact of updates on patient care.

Experts in evidence-based medicine in Italy evaluated the resources without informing the database providers. Researchers identified 128 systematic reviews (comprehensive evidence reports that provide the best current answer to a specific clinical concept) that were considered important enough to change clinical practice and followed the databases every month to determine how long it took for this most important evidence to show up in the resources promoted for doctors to use.

Two months after a systematic review was published, they checked if the evidence was included in each database and then repeated their monitoring every month to measure how long until it would be included. At two months DynaMed already had more than 60 percent of the reviews being monitored, and this increased to 77 percent at three months, and 87 percent at nine months. All of the other databases included less than 50 percent of the important evidence, even after nine months. The researchers even reported that the updating speed of some of the oft-relied upon resources was too slow for them to reliably measure it.

Another study published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association in July tested DynaMed against seven other point-of-care resources with similar results. Also without the knowledge of database publishers, librarians in Texas tested these resources by selecting the top 10 diagnoses and monitored each tool for frequency of updates on these topics. The average number of days between updates in the treatment information was 19 for DynaMed and between 199 and 449 for all the other resources.

DynaMed is a clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other healthcare professionals for use at the point-of-care. With clinically organised summaries for more than 3,200 topics, DynaMed provides the latest content and resources with validity, relevance and convenience, making DynaMed an indispensable resource for answering most clinical questions during practice.

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EBSCO Publishing has released a new iPhone application for Business Book Summaries (BBS). The app is stated to be designed for BBS customers looking for convenient and quick access to concise, yet comprehensive book summaries for the best business books available.

With the new BBS iPhone app, executives will be able to access the most current business thought from anywhere via their Apple iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Available free from the iTunes App Store, Business Book Summaries iPhone app offers easy authentication for users via their BBS profile, according to the company.

Features in the new app include a book carousel home page and the ability to browse by category, new book summaries or summaries available in audio. The app also provides an option to download PDFs and audio to the user's device for offline viewing — allowing users to view the content at time better for them.

BBS is a database providing concise summaries of the leading business books. Designed to help executives acquire business knowledge faster, BBS includes a library of more than 750 book summaries with more than 60 new titles added annually. For each book, experts create 300-word, 650-word, and 4,500-word summaries that present the author's ideas in a condensed form.

BBS seeks to provide summaries of the top business books containing the most current business thought. Additional corporate learning solutions offered by EBSCO Publishing include Corporate Learning Watch, Learning Centers, Competency Center and Employee Training Center.

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Thomson IP Management Services, part of information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that it is expanding to include intellectual property management consulting. The consulting practice is a response to growing client demand and is a natural complement to the business's core portfolio management software and patent payment and trademark renewal services.

IP management consulting services from Thomson IP Management Services include Operations review; Strategic planning; Change management; Process optimisation and implementation; Complex software implementation; and Technology improvement and best practices.

The Thomson IP Management Services consulting team comprises technical and IP domain experts, attorneys and advanced-degree specialists with deep industry expertise, backed by leading Thomson Reuters software solutions, to partner with client organisations and provide the necessary tailored support. The team is led by attorney Adam Jaffe, director of the consulting practice, who has extensive experience providing IP and legal consulting services to leading global companies.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that Highline Medical Center has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the organisation's electronic order set solution. Highline Medical Center is comprised of two healthcare campuses and more than 20 clinics across Southwest King County.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. ProVation Order Sets is built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform. One of its primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 450,000 users worldwide.

A One-Click Updates tool featured by ProVation Order Sets is stated to leverage UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 9,000 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 77,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 328,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allows for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Business information provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that Monongahela Valley Hospital (MVH) has signed a multi-year agreement to use Thomson Reuters Micromedex solutions as its source for evidence-based clinical reference information.

MVH is a 210-bed, full-service healthcare facility in western Pennsylvania. The hospital needed a clinical reference resource that would deliver high quality decision support that was clinically consistent for all departments.

The Micromedex solution is used in 3,500 hospitals in the US and also in 85 countries. It is evidence-based, fully referenced, and provides consistent clinical answers on drugs and drug interactions, disease management, toxicology, alternative medicine, and intravenous drug compatibility, as well as patient education resources. By choosing an integrated source for all of its clinical reference needs, Monongahela Valley will limit resources required to train staff and eliminate the need to support disparate clinical reference systems.

Ovid, part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced the release of OvidEspañol, a Spanish-language search portal that allows healthcare practitioners, clinicians, students, and researchers to search, browse, and manage search results of core Spanish-language medical content.

Based on the same platform functionality as Ovid's other local-language search portals, including OvidFrançais and OvidChinese, OvidEspañol is accessible anytime, anywhere a user has internet access. They can search and browse content by subject area, and perform other research tasks including enter search terms in Spanish; refine book searches by specific criteria; search multiple resources simultaneously; access a growing list of premium resources; navigate between the table of contents, chapters, and sections; email or export images from the image gallery to PowerPoint; and capture key content by exporting citations to PDF.

For its initial release, OvidEspañol offers a selection of translated core medical titles from Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, including well-known titles in diabetes, psychiatry, gynaecology, and general medicine, among other medical subject areas.

Ovid is known worldwide for OvidSP, an English-language online research platform that offers unique tools and features designed to maximise search precision and efficiency, and simplify and speed analysis and workflow—all in a simple, integrated and easy-to-use system. Ovid introduced its first local-language portal, OvidFrançais, in 2010, and announced OvidChinese last month. Upcoming local-language portals include Arabic.

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Health information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that Decatur Medical Center has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the hospital’s electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets is projected as an easily customizable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. The tool is built upon ProVation Medical’s clinician-designed technology platform. One of its primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 450,000 users worldwide.

A One-Click Updates tool featured by ProVation Order Sets is stated to leverage UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 9,000 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 77,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 328,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allows for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visitwww.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.

Ovid, part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced the release of Ovid’s latest local language search portal, OvidChinese. OvidChinese allows healthcare practitioners, clinicians, students, and researchers to search, browse, and manage results of core Chinese-language medical content. From August 31 through September 04, Ovid will offer demonstrations of OvidChinese at the Beijing International Book Fair in China, Stand E2.C30.

OvidChinese is accessible anytime, anywhere a user has internet access. Users can search and browse content by subject area, and perform other research tasks including enter search terms in Simplified Chinese; refine book searches by specific criteria; search multiple resources simultaneously; access premium resources published by the top publishers in China; navigate between table of contents, chapters, and sections; email or export images from the image gallery to PowerPoint; capture key content by exporting citations to PDF; and offer Chinese-language information to students, faculty, and clinicians.

Ovid continues to expand its content offerings on OvidChinese with new and established partnerships among leading Chinese medical publishers, including Higher Education Press (HEP), People’s Medical Publishing House (PMPH), People’s Military Medical Digital Press (PMMDP), and Shanghai Scientific & Technical Publishers (SSTP).

More than 400 titles are currently available on the portal with several hundred more titles planned for later this year. The content covers Traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and therapeutic areas such as surgery and regenerative medicine, among other disciplines.

To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.

Health information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that Samaritan Medical Center has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the organisation's electronic order set solution. Located in Watertown, New York, Samaritan Medical Center serves as the regional referral centre for northern New York, providing an array of medical, surgical and emergency care services.

ProVation Order Sets is projected as an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. The tool is built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform. One of its primary values is said to be the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, which reportedly has 450,000 users worldwide.

A One-Click Updates tool featured by ProVation Order Sets is stated to leverage UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 9,000 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 77,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 328,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.

Collaborative health management solutions provider MEDecision, Inc., US, has announced that its 2011 URAC accredited Alineo Clinical Programs are now generally available. Claimed to be an essential component of a successful care management strategy, the annually updated Clinical Programs consist of standardised case and disease management assessments developed by MEDecision to drive quality and consistency of care, effectively reducing healthcare costs.

With more than two million articles published in 20,000 medical journals annually, it is challenging to keep up with the latest important updates to medical protocols and innovations. MEDecision's Clinical Programs combine evidence-based medicine, best practices and national guidelines to save health plans time and resources by providing fingertip access to the most current medical information available. Using both comprehensive and focused assessment tools, care managers are able to determine treatment opportunities, create individualized, optimal plans of care, engage members and close gaps in care to effectively reduce costs.

New features of the 2011 Clinical Programs include web-based integration to 20 Emmi programmes - interactive patient education materials that engage members in their care and improve adherence to treatment regimens - as well as medication lists reviewed by external registered pharmacists and new sections focused on provider connectivity and wellness. Intuitive branching logic allows care managers to use a single questionnaire to manage up to 99 co-morbid conditions - enhancing efficiency and productivity of the end users. While the platform hosts highly sophisticated, complex clinical data, the Clinical Programs tools are streamlined and easy to use in the day-to-day care management of members.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Aultman Hospital has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the hospital's electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is projected as an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. One of its primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 450,000 users worldwide.

The product is supported by the One-Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates. Enabled by a structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 9,000 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 77,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 328,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. It also features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allows for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced a new release of Codifa, an easy to use and powerful online point of care drug information platform serving Italian healthcare providers.

This project is part of Elsevier's continuous efforts to offer most qualified and relevant international contents to its local or multi-language clinical products in Europe. Codifa's critical drug information reduces the clinical risk associated with errors in prescribing or administering drugs, adverse reactions and suboptimal dosages.

The new Codifa system improves significantly the core functionalities and contents of the 2005 release, providing a new user-friendly interface and search engine designed to enhance and speed up information retrieval, reading, integration in workflows and use on handheld devices. Longstanding partnerships with important, Italian and international, institutions and associations (both public and private) ensure that Codifa provides authoritative, information on drug interactions, global brand name conversion, generic drug search and price trends.

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McMaster University's Health Information Research Unit and DynaMed from EBSCO Publishing have partnered to help physicians understand the scope of the medical research being published every day. As a result of the agreement, the two best systems for keeping up with medical research have come together in an international partnership to identify practice-changing evidence for physicians and to include that knowledge directly into the DynaMed experience.

The agreement between McMaster University and DynaMed provides physicians with the information they need to know - the best available evidence - when and where they need it most - at the point of care.

McMaster University and DynaMed add context to the medical literature allowing hospitals and healthcare providers to make decisions based on the best available evidence. The Health Information Research Unit at McMaster University has established a process to identify high-quality medical research and has recruited a global network of thousands of physicians spanning all disciplines that evaluates the clinical relevance and newsworthiness of high quality research articles.

DynaMed is a point-of-care clinical reference and decision support resource that identifies the best available evidence. It uses a team of physicians, health professionals from other disciplines and scientists trained in research methodology to critically analyse the content. The resource summarises research evidence for rapid application and makes the information available for physicians to find in the moment-to-moment context of patient care.

It is expected that by combining these systematic and rigorous methods for identifying and analysing medical research and adding the vast array of practicing physicians, physicians using DynaMed will be able to quickly identify the practice-changing medical research results across all medical disciplines.

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Elsevier / CPM Resource Center (CPM), a firm developing clinical decision support tools for healthcare, has announced a contract with Providence Health & Services, a not-for-profit health system committed to providing services to communities across five states - Alaska, California, Montana, Oregon and Washington. The deal is to provide evidence-based clinical content software.

Providence Health & Services selected CPM as the vendor of choice for evidence-based interdisciplinary professional practice workflow support, including clinical documentation, care planning and clinical practice guidelines for nurses and interdisciplinary clinicians in order to improve overall patient care and patient experience. CPM's evidence-based content seamlessly interfaces with health information technology platforms.

Providence Health & Services plans to validate and begin using the CPM clinical content this year to support clinical scholarship within their organisation. CPM's products will be delivered within Providence Health & Services' future acute care EHR (Electronic Health Record) system, which will begin rolling out in 2012. The organisation's Clinical Practice Transformation Team (CPTT) will engage in reviewing and validating the interdisciplinary content for use in an acute care setting, and consultants from CPM's Transformation Services team will also work with the teams to create consistent practice adoption throughout all areas.

The adoption of CPM's products will help Providence Health & Services to further achieve its organisation's goals, including maintaining the highest clinical standards possible, reducing variation in care delivery and empowering clinicians to practice with the best point-of-care resources. Additionally, the combination of the EHR platform and CPM's product will also support Providence Health & Services' acute care ministries to achieve advances in care in order to achieve nursing excellence.

With more than 25 years of experience, CPM embraces the concept of providing a culture and professional practice framework that consists of evidence-based clinical care solutions to assist in the practice transformation of hospitals. Essentially, solutions are offered to not only help standardise care across the continuum but provide superior support to point-of-care providers throughout the transition to ensure seamless adoption by the interdisciplinary team and that appropriate systems are in place to meet the goals and objectives of the facility.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Hardin Memorial Hospital has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the organisation's electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is projected as an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. One of its primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 450,000 users worldwide.

The product is supported by the One-Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates. Enabled by a structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 9,000 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 77,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 328,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. It also features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allows for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Business information provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that its Clinical Xpert CareFocus is 2011/2012 compliant and was recently certified as an EHR Module by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), an ONC-ATCB, in accordance with the applicable eligible hospital certification criteria adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The 2011/2012 criteria support the Stage 1 meaningful use measures required to qualify eligible providers and hospitals for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

The ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certification programme tests and certifies that Complete EHRs meet all of the 2011/2012 criteria and EHR Modules meet one or more - but not all - of the criteria approved by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) for either eligible provider or hospital technology.

The certification number for Clinical Xpert CareFocus version 28 is CC-1112-352290-2. ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certification conferred by CCHIT does not represent an endorsement of the certified EHR technology by the US Department of Health and Human Services nor does it guarantee the receipt of incentive payments.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Moses Cone Health System has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the electronic order set solution for the five-hospital health system.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is projected as an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. One of its primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 450,000 users worldwide.

The product is supported by the One-Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates. Enabled by a structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 9,000 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 77,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 328,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. It also features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allows for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Business information provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced its intention to divest its Healthcare business, which has been part of the company's Healthcare & Science segment. The Healthcare business provides data, analytics and performance benchmarking solutions and services to companies, government agencies and healthcare professionals.

With leading assets and solutions such as MarketScan, Advantage Suite, Micromedex, CareDiscovery and ActionOI, coupled with expert services and analysis, the Healthcare business provides its customers with solutions to identify savings, improve outcomes, fight fraud and abuse and more efficiently manage their healthcare operations.

The Healthcare business in 2010 had revenues of about $450 million and an operating margin comparable to the company's consolidated margin of 19.3 percent. Following adjustment for this divestiture by removing Healthcare's results from ongoing businesses, no material impact is expected to the company's previously announced 2011 outlook. The company expects the divestiture to close before the end of the year.

This divestiture will result in a realignment of the company's existing Intellectual Property and Science businesses into a single operating unit of the Professional division. Both are global and support scientific research, discovery and innovation.

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Oxford Medicine Online has announced the launch of Oxford Medical Libraries Online, a new resource that offers a collection of subject-based libraries containing over 50 invaluable short guides. It covers a wide range of therapy areas and delivers relevant advice that is designed to meet the day-to-day needs of the medical professional.

Each title takes an evidence-based approach and summarises the latest research in a style that has a direct clinical application for busy healthcare professionals. New titles and editions will be added to the service on an on-going basis.

Oxford Medical Libraries Online enables users to search and browse the full text of every title; read the content in a clear and attractive page layout, using a range of browsers; enlarge images and download them to Power Point for presentations; and move around each title easily, with 'jump to' buttons, breadcrumb trails and chapter-to-chapter linking.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that it has completed the acquisition of Lexi-Comp, Inc., a provider of drug information and clinical content for pharmacists, clinicians and hospitals internationally. The acquisition is the latest in a series of strategic acquisitions WK Health has made in its Clinical Solutions business as part of the company's strong focus on the point-of-care market.

Lexi-Comp provides services and content to nearly 1,500 hospitals internationally, has more than 1,700 drug monographs and is particularly strong in the area of mobile content for pharmacists and clinicians. To support and supplement effective clinician-patient interactions, Lexi-Comp also provides patient medication leaflets in 19 languages.

The intent to acquire Lexi-Comp was announced on April 27, 2011. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

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Ovid, part of Wolters Kluwer Health, has announced the availability of OvidMD, claimed to be the first clinical tool from Ovid designed especially for physicians and other clinicians. OvidMD provides quick answers to clinical questions based on relevant full-text content from Ovid. The solution presents latest medical research on OvidSP and synoptic content from UpToDate through the same, easy-to-use interface.

Designed for and tested by physicians, OvidMD fills a clinical information gap between point-of- care tools and in-depth medical research, when a clinician has between 5-15 minutes of time to find quick, relevant answers in the literature. Verified by research conducted with physicians, OvidMD offers a variety of content that fits into the few minutes that are available when a physician is with a patient, in the time that may be available during a break, or in longer periods that may be available for more extensive research.

OvidMD delivers only clinically-relevant results from a simple search query. With a single search, OvidMD uncovers the latest treatment options, evidence-based guidelines, and drug therapies, plus users can download customizable patient handouts, link instantly to full text, review articles, and more. Convenient search tools include auto complete, synonym expansion, drawing on Ovid's proprietary controlled vocabulary lexicon to provide hundreds of thousands of medical synonyms, phrase detection, spelling suggestions, and highlighted search terms.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Sonoma Valley Hospital has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the facility's electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is projected as an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution. It seeks to provide flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. One of its primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 450,000 users worldwide.

The product is supported by the One-Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates. Enabled by a structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 9,000 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 77,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 328,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. It also features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allows for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced a new look for its evidence-based point-of-care clinical reference tool DynaMed. A new design and easier functionality are being introduced in a preview so users can explore the new features before the transition in completed in July.

Some of the standout features include a new Spotlight area highlighting clinically relevant news and information. Changes to the current Search Other Services area allows users to easily navigate to other resources directly from DynaMed improving access to additional information during diagnosis and treatment. Enhanced navigation functionality within the result list includes hover functionality. New linking functionality drives users directly to a topic subsection from the result list and allows users to obtain related search results from other EBSCO databases to which they subscribe.

Additionally, enhanced navigation options within the topic allow users to easily navigate the topic sections and subsections. Searching within the text of a topic enables users to easily find specific terms or phrases. Enhancements to the 'Recent Updates' page enables users to filter updates easily as well as to view by specialty. A new practice changing updates feature allows users to filter the display to only show recent updates that are most likely to change clinical practice.

In July when DynaMed users migrate over to the new interface, additional changes will be introduced. These include new spell-checker functionality that will suggest alternate terms, the ability to create email alerts to be notified when topics are updated with new evidence and persistent links in DynaMed that will support proxy server authentication.

DynaMed is an evidence-based clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other healthcare professionals for use primarily at the point of care. The tool is updated daily in order to provide the best available evidence and can be integrated into electronic health records.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing, US, has released Chemical Controls Watch, a monitoring tool for corporate toxicologists and executives responsible for chemical handling. Chemical Controls Watch is a comprehensive resource for executives tasked with managing toxic chemicals at their organisation.

The tool helps executives maintain awareness of chemical-related regulations and legislation that may impact business operations, imports and exports—a necessity in today's increasingly interconnected global economy. The resource includes more than 80 reports tracking chemical-related laws and regulations related to international trading blocs and the top 75 economies throughout the world.

Chemical Controls Watch utilises EBSCO's well established evidence-based methodology that is designed to focus on areas of interest to corporate executives. The evidence-based approach identifies, selects and systematically evaluates pertinent information and creates a synthesis of the best available evidence.

EBSCO's experience with evidence-based content includes the point-of-care resources it provides to hospitals and other medical institutions including the clinical decision support resource DynaMed. Other EBSCO products that have adapted the evidence-based methodology include Sustainability Watch, Corporate Learning Watch, Competency Center and Food Industry Watch.

Chemical Controls Watch may be integrated into corporate portals and Intranets. The EBSCOhost Integration Toolkit allows EBSCO's content to be incorporated into an organisation's workflow - providing seamless access to premium content.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the acquisition of Fisterra.com, a widely used e-clinical reference solution in Spain. Fisterra was launched in 2002 by two primary care doctors and a medical librarian in response to the need for an online short answer Spanish language reference solution to help primary care physicians. It provides access to Fisterrae, an advanced e-clinical reference solution that integrates support resources for health professionals in a local language platform.

Fisterrae is written by doctors and pharmacists and is kept permanently up to date by medical journals, reviews by the Cochrane Library and the most important databases of clinical practice guidelines. Fisterra.com solutions include clinical guides and protocols; a clinical drug database with dosage calculators; a vaccination tool; electronic continuing medical education content; and patient handouts. A mobile app suitable for point of care contexts is also in development.

The website will add to Elsevier's electronic services supported by distinguished local authors, translations of major international references, information and first-level knowledge to individuals and groups engaged in quality health practice and research.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing, US, has announced a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) to provide institutional access to Mainpro MI educational credits via DynaMed, an evidence-based reference resource. The integration of DynaMed with the CMA system enables physicians to use DynaMed for research and quickly and easily earn Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits.

Representing more than 74,000 of Canada's physicians, the CMA claims to be the only association that offers automatic transfer of credits to the College of Family Physicians Canada (CFPC).

DynaMed is a clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other healthcare professionals for use primarily at the point-of-care. It contains clinically-organised summaries for more than 3,200 topics; the database is updated daily and can be integrated into electronic health records.

The new partnership with DynaMed enables the CMA to help physicians work towards obtaining their credits through a self-reflective look at their practice while earning continuing medical education credits. Institutional access provides a direct link from clinical summaries within DynaMed to their CMA account to submit searches and receive Mainpro MI educational credits.

CMA members may access DynaMed at http://www.cma.ca/clinicalresources/dynamed. Institutions currently subscribing to DynaMed may have the new CMA CME feature turned on within their subscription at no additional charge.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Maury Regional Medical Center has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the facility's electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is projected as an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution. It seeks to provide flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. One of its primary values of the solution is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 450,000 users worldwide.

The product is supported by the One-Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates. Enabled by a structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 9,000 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 77,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 328,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. It also features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allows for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), a Wolters Kluwer Health business, has announced that it is expanding the expert clinical content in Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills to include 100 pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and 75 neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nursing procedures. The new procedures are the latest addition to the comprehensive list of essential medical-surgical, critical care, perioperative, maternal-neonatal, pediatric, psychiatric, and emergency nursing procedures that make up the trusted online clinical resource.

With the most recent enhancement, Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills will give nurses accurate, step-by-step guidance for more than 1,200 evidence-based procedures. The online resource provides skills checklists and competency tests for each procedure to help facilities verify staff competence.

Each procedure undergoes a thorough annual review process to ensure the most up-to-date clinical information is provided. Facilities can customise and add procedures to meet their specific needs. The new procedures are available online and through mobile devices to subscribing institutions.

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Business information provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that North Philadelphia Health System has selected Thomson Reuters Pharmacy Xpert to help pharmacists reduce medication costs and improve efficiency and quality of care. Pharmacy Xpert is part of the Clinical Xpert suite of clinical workflow solutions.

Pharmacy Xpert combines three critical elements that enable pharmacists to manage medication therapy more efficiently - real-time clinical surveillance, comprehensive patient data, and integrated, patient-specific Micromedex reference content.

The system's single dashboard access will provide pharmacists at North Philadelphia Health System with the information they need in one place, lessening the time spent searching for answers and ultimately improving quality of care for patients. Using Pharmacy Xpert's real-time clinical surveillance capabilities, pharmacists will be able to identify opportunities to move patients to lower cost medications, thereby increasing savings for the health system.

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Drug database provider Elsevier/Gold Standard, US, has announced that eHealthObjects, an innovative healthcare solutions company, has chosen Alchemy as its drug database. eHealthObjects specialises in delivering healthcare technology products, solutions and platforms that can seamlessly be integrated with other systems.

Alchemy is a complete drug database best known for its intelligent screening tools, which eliminate irrelevant and unnecessary alerts. Designed so that all clinical decision support logic can be performed in a single, instantaneous request, Alchemy works with any system configuration, ensuring quick and simple installation and adoption.

Alchemy will supply drug data to eHealthObject's ThinkHIE (Health Information Exchange Platform), ThinkEHR (Inpatient and Ambulatory Electronic Health Record) and ThinkCDM (Case and Disease Management) products. These products and solutions are recognised by industry experts for their interoperability and intuitive interfaces, which allow healthcare providers and clinicians to become comfortable with them in just a few hours, as opposed to weeks or months.

eHealthObjects has begun integrating Alchemy modules with its systems and expects to offer its customers ThinkHIE, ThinkEHR and ThinkCDM, including complete and automatically updating drug data, in May.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has entered into an agreement to acquire Lexi-Comp, Inc., a global provider of drug information and clinical content for pharmacists and clinicians. The acquisition is the latest in a series of strategic acquisitions WK Health has made in its Clinical Solutions business as part of the company's strong focus on serving the point-of-care segment.

Lexi-Comp provides drug information and medical reference content to more than 1,500 hospitals internationally, and publishes drug monographs covering more than 1,700 products. The company's clinical information is available to pharmacists and other healthcare professionals online and on a variety of popular mobile devices, as well as through integrated health information systems. To support and supplement effective clinician-patient interactions, Lexi-Comp also provides patient medication leaflets in 19 languages.

The acquisition of Lexi-Comp will enable WK Health to further strengthen its leading position in the clinical decision support and point-of-care information segments and to provide customers with even more robust drug information and clinical content offerings for both hospital pharmacies and overall hospital enterprises. It will also enable pharmacist, physician and nurse customers to use an extended suite of mobile capabilities and online platforms, making access to critical medical information more convenient than ever before.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of required regulatory approvals. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

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The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the National Institutes of Health has unveiled a new online resource, designed to give healthcare providers easy access to evidence-based information on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). This new resource seeks to provide health care providers with the tools necessary to learn about the various CAM practices and products and be better able to discuss the safety and effectiveness of complementary and alternative medicine with their patients.

The portal on the NCCAM website at nccam.nih.gov is tailored to fit the needs of all healthcare providers, including physicians, nurses and nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and CAM providers. It includes information on the safety and efficacy of a range of common health practices that lie outside of mainstream medicine - natural products, such as dietary supplements, herbs, and probiotics, as well as mind-body practices such as meditation, chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage.

This resource was developed based on a series of NCCAM-sponsored focus groups where health care providers identified the need for an evidence-based, one-stop place to help answer their patients' questions on CAM. With this need in mind, NCCAM developed a resource that provides reliable, objective, and evidenced-based information on CAM, including links to relevant clinical practice guidelines; safety and effectiveness information; links to systematic reviews; summaries of research studies; scientific literature searches; and programmes for continuing education credit; and patient fact sheets.

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Business information provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that the Allina Health System, a not-for-profit network of hospitals, clinics and other healthcare services, has selected Micromedex as its drug information vendor. The decision reportedly came after a month-long rigorous evaluation of drug information systems, in which Thomson’s Micromedex was rated higher than any other competitor.

The four-year agreement provides Allina Health clinicians with point-of-care access to evidence-based clinical information through Micromedex.

In addition to web-based access with Micromedex 2.0, and tailored integration with most hospital information systems, Micromedex has been optimised to work with the Safari and Opera Mini browsers. This is for use with BlackBerry smartphones, Android-based phones, or any device with 3G or Wi-Fi connectivity. To date, more than a quarter million clinicians have downloaded the Micromedex Dug Information Application to their iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, according to Thomson.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that Nathan Littauer Hospital has selected the ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the hospital's electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets is projected as an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution. It seeks to provide flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. One of the primary values of the solution is continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, a resource used by 400,000 users worldwide.

The product is supported by the One-Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates. Enabled by a structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates is said to alert end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. It also features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Williamson Medical Center has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the hospital's electronic order set solution. The Williamson Medical Center provides comprehensive inpatient and outpatient care including emergency services and a wide range of wellness services, screenings and classes.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform, one of ProVation Order Sets' primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 400,000 clinicians.

Central to this capability is the One Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a unique, structured approach to data management, One Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 8,300 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 97,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 385,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allows for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Mobile medical references provider Skyscape, Inc., US, a subsidiary of Physicians Interactive Holdings, has launched the Skyscape Pediatrics Suite. This new suite of pediatrics resources is designed specifically to help pediatricians take the guesswork out of treatment and prescribing decisions.

The Skyscape Pediatrics Suite, featuring the gold-standard Red Book, includes unbiased content from physician-authors and trusted content providers, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and Massachusetts Medical Society. This content is then paired with formulas, calculators, algorithms, cross-referencing and diagnostic tools to aid in clinical decision making.

The Pediatric Suite is the first in a series of specialty-focused app suites that Skyscape is developing. These mobile suites will help healthcare professionals access the information they need, when they need it, so that they can focus on providing first-rate patient care.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, and Iatric Systems, Inc have collaborated to offer content from the Micromedex CareNotes System integrated into the Iatric Systems Patient Discharge Module.

Hospitals use CareNotes, one of the Micromedex clinical evidence solutions from Thomson Reuters, to provide patients with educational information about all aspects of their care and health. Iatric Systems customers can now access CareNotes content within the Patient Discharge Module allowing doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals to quickly deliver important clinical discharge instructions to patients.

This solution enables healthcare providers to meet criteria outlined in the US government's Meaningful Use objectives, which require eligible healthcare professionals and hospitals to provide patients with electronic care information, including discharge instructions.

The new offering creates a fully integrated module that combines personalised post-discharge instructions and medication monitoring with the most trusted patient education content available to help clinicians provide patients with customised materials about their conditions, medications, treatments, and follow-up care. Iatric Systems customers will now be able to seamlessly access Micromedex educational materials from within their existing workflow, improving clinical performance as well as health outcomes and patient satisfaction.

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Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) and Ovid, part of Wolters Kluwer Health, are providing free online access to emergency, disaster, trauma and radiation contamination resources to Japanese hospitals and healthcare institutions affected by the recent disasters. The online access is provided via the Wolters Kluwer Health Emergency Resources Portal. The initiative is in support of disaster relief efforts in Japan following the recent earthquake and tsunami. The access will be immediate and extend for 30 days.

Resources available through the portal include Ovid MEDLINE, LWW Total Access journal collection, LWW Emergency Medicine e-book collection, LWW Critical Care medicine e-book collection, LWW Hospital e-book collection and LWW Nursing e-book collection.

On offer are pre-set expert searches for instant access to relevant information on OvidSP, a medical information search and discovery platforms. The searches cover PTSD, disease prevention related to earthquakes, radiation contamination effects and treatment, public health responses, sanitation and vaccination.

Available for a limited time during the Japan earthquake crisis, access to the Wolters Kluwer Health Emergency Resources Portal is IP-validated through Japan for hospitals, institutional libraries and other healthcare entities in the nation supporting the disaster relief efforts.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Ozarks Medical Center has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the hospital's electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform, one of ProVation Order Sets' primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 400,000 clinicians.

Central to this capability is the One-Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a unique, structured approach to data management, One-Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 8,300 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 97,000 pages of text and graphics, more than 385,000 Medline references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allows for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced a strategic relationship between First Consult and Cleveland Clinic to provide physician-author support of content for First Consult. First Consult is an evidence-based resource integrated into the clinical workflow to deliver trusted medical information at the point-of-care. Through this collaboration, Cleveland Clinic physicians will now be able to provide ongoing updates and reviews of First Consult medical topics.

First Consult's content is enhanced through the direct contribution of medical topics by Cleveland Clinic medical experts into First Consult's peer-review editorial process. This collaboration expands on an already established relationship between Elsevier and Cleveland Clinic. The Clinic currently provides point-of-care Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit to users of Elsevier's First Consult and MD Consult, a clinical reference tool utilised by more than 2,000 healthcare organisations and 95 percent of all US medical schools.

As physicians increasingly turn to the Internet for clinical information, the relationship between Elsevier and Cleveland Clinic helps ensure that the information they receive is current, relevant and accurate, thus improving overall patient care. Instead of relying on the unproven information available widely on the Internet, Elsevier sees physicians gravitating more to the evidence-based clinical content provided by online tools such as First Consult.

First Consult is projected as an ideal resource for quickly answering questions related to screening, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the majority of the medical conditions responsible for office visits and inpatient admissions. First Consult is also available as an iPhone/iPad app, available through free download from the Apple App Store.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced a new partnership with Dowden Custom Media (Dowden) to offer hospital marketers and digital strategists evidence-based health content along with website development services. This new partnership brings the expertise in website development and integration of Dowden's in-house Web development team, eCrossings Media, together with evidence-based consumer health information from EBSCO's Health Library.

The Web development team from Dowden Custom Media helps hospital marketers simplify their online strategy and implementation process. The partnership with EBSCO enables Dowden to include Health Library's valuable evidence-based consumer health information within the hospital websites being developed. Including Health Library means healthcare providers can enhance their Web presence by providing valuable condition and treatment information for patients and their families while including links to their related specialists and services.

Health Library is an evidence-based database, providing comprehensive coverage of health, wellness, and other medically related topics. Content is presented in an easy-to-understand manner that helps consumers make appropriate choices about healthcare. The database also features a comprehensive complementary medicine resource that includes an extensive range of natural and alternative treatments. All of the content is written by experienced medical writers, independently reviewed by medically credentialed experts and updated on a regular basis to reflect the most recent information and research available.

Dowden Custom Media provides online brand development, best practices-based Web design and development, and full-service technology solutions for healthcare organisations. Its print, content marketing and custom editorial services offer hospital marketers fully integrated communication campaigns and initiatives. With the new EBSCO and Dowden partnership, hospital marketers will now be able to further streamline their digital and print communications.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that the company is providing free access to its primary online clinical reference tools - MD Consult and First Consult - to all IPs originating from Japan. The move follows the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11. Free access will be available through April, 2011. This effort is part of a new initiative to provide easily accessible focused resources in response to world events that present difficult medical challenges.

MD Consult is an authoritative combination of clinically relevant information to give medical professionals an answer to their clinical questions, stay abreast of recent developments, and educate patients, resulting in better patient care and improved outcomes. First Consult is Elsevier's point-of-care content that is integrated within MD Consult and leverages evidence-based medical information to deliver answers that are trusted, quick, and accessible.

MD Consult has also added a recommended resource topic page for Radiation Sickness, which is linked from www.mdconsult.com. If access to a desktop computer is problematic, MD Consult has a mobile version, and First Consult has an iPhone/iPad app that provides offline access to First Consult's content in areas that have limited or no internet connectivity.

Additionally, Elsevier is also providing free online access to medical information for healthcare professionals in Japan through the Emergency Access Initiative (EAI), a partnership of the National Library of Medicine and the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers and other publishers. EAI provides temporary free access to full-text articles from major biomedicine titles to healthcare professionals, librarians and the public affected by disasters. The idea for EAI was proposed in the aftermath of 9/11, but its first real use was in response to last year's earthquake in Haiti.

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Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that Kindred Healthcare, Inc.'s Hospital Division will provide the expert clinical content from Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills and Lippincott's Nursing Advisor to the nurses in their hospitals.

Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills gives nurses accurate, step-by-step guidance for over 1,000 procedures. The online resource provides skills checklists and competency tests for each procedure to help facilities verify staff competence. Each procedure undergoes a thorough annual review process to ensure the most up-to-date clinical information is provided. Facilities can customise the programme and procedures to meet their specific needs.

Lippincott's Nursing Advisor is designed to provide nurses quick and efficient access to the specific information needed to provide optimal patient care, including expert content from the best-selling Nursing2011 Drug Handbook. Drug, disease, treatment, diagnostic test, and signs and symptoms monographs provide essential information to nurses quickly in their daily workflow. Customisation functionality allows hospital protocols to be added, improving staff awareness, compliance and care standardisation.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, and Health Care Systems, Inc (HCS) have announced an integration agreement that gives hospitals, ambulatory clinics, and physician practices more options in how they use Thomson Reuters Micromedex drug and patient education reference information.

Under the agreement, evidence-based information from Micromedex will now be available with most core HIS, Physician Practice Management and Ambulatory EMR vendor architectures.

The new integration options give hospitals design flexibility in how they provide Micromedex content to clinicians and patients. Hospitals will have ability to store CareNotes patient education documents in their electronic medical records, and provide them directly to patients.

The solution addresses the Meaningful Use Core Objective for electronic patient discharge instructions. CareNotes patient education materials for this solution are available in 15 languages.

In addition to integrating Micromedex content into most major healthcare information systems, HCS also will integrate Micromedex content directly into its own Medication Reconciliation solution. The HCS Medication Reconciliation solution addresses a critical element of meaningful use compliance, and will use Micromedex content for both drug-interaction checking and patient education.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced the availability of evidence-based clinical and patient-focused information that covers the evaluation and treatment of radiation exposure in response to the disaster in Japan.

These free resources can be downloaded from http://healthcare.thomsonreuters.com/radiation and include clinical information on evaluating radiation exposures; clinical information about drugs used in the treatment of radiation exposure; clinical information about treating overdoses involving radiation therapies; patient education handouts for people who have been exposed to or are concerned about the risk of radiation exposure; and patient education handouts for people who receive treatment for radiation exposure.

The information provided is drawn from the Thomson Reuters Micromedex suite of clinical reference solutions, covering the evaluation, clinical effects, range of toxicity, and treatment protocols for dealing with non-medical radiation exposure. Also provided are detailed information on dosage, pharmacokinetics, cautions, interactions, and adverse effects for medications used for treating radiation exposure.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that Providence Health & Services, a 27 hospital not-for-profit system that serves communities in five states, has selected Thomson Reuters Micromedex to support its clinical integration and evidence-based care initiatives.

Providence Health & Services will use Micromedex solutions for drug, disease, and toxicology reference, patient education, and neonatal drug dosing information integrated within their enterprise clinical information system. Clinicians in the health system will gain access to premier evidence-based clinical content, delivered across the enterprise, integrated seamlessly within their workflow. Micromedex will compliment their strategy as they migrate from multiple clinical systems to a single enterprise system.

Micromedex is currently used by more than 3,500 hospitals in the US and in 80 countries worldwide. More than a quarter million clinicians have downloaded the Micromedex drug information iPhone application to-date. Based on systematic, critical evaluation of the world's biomedical literature and regulatory actions, Micromedex content consistently provides the most comprehensive, direct, and complete answers to complex medication management questions.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, and Zynx Health, a subsidiary of Hearst Corporation, have announced that Thomson Reuters Micromedex will be integrated into ZynxOrder evidence-based order sets.

This integration pushes Micromedex clinical reference information to the point of care, giving physicians access to comprehensive drug information and disease protocols from their ZynxOrder evidence-based order set. Thomson Reuters will partner with Zynx Health as its source for order set solutions, and Zynx Health will offer Micromedex content as a preferred choice for clinical reference content. Joint customers will have contextual links from their ZynxOrder order sets into the Micromedex content.

This agreement unites Zynx Health's market leadership in providing evidence-based and experience-based clinical decision support solutions to more than 1,700 hospitals with Thomson Reuters' market leadership in providing Micromedex evidence-based clinical reference information to more than 3,500 hospitals. According to Thomas Hegelund, executive vice president at Thomson Reuters, the combination of ZynxOrder order sets and Micromedex evidence-based reference information integrated into the electronic health record and computerised physician order entry environment will give physicians comprehensive clinical information where they need it most.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that ScriptRx, Inc. will integrate Medi-Span Clinical into its line of touch-screen EMR and discharge systems for emergency rooms and urgent care centers. The agreement was announced at the ongoing HIMSS11, where Wolters Kluwer Health is featuring several of its leading clinical decision support (CDS) tools, including Medi-Span Clinical, in Booth #6162.

ScriptRx is a provider of electronic discharge systems specific to the 'walk-in' ambulatory sector of healthcare, including hospital emergency departments, urgent care centers and retail health clinics. Its interactive EMR, Discharge Instructions, Prescription Writing and Medication Reconciliation systems are packaged into intuitive, user-friendly and customisable software with touch-screen hardware. Designed to be a low-cost alternative to more complicated medical software programmes, ScriptRx systems enable physicians to chart patient encounters, prescribe medications, access drug reference information, generate legible discharge instructions and view formulary information, all at the point of care.

Medi-Span Clinical is a CDS platform that delivers the functionality, interoperability and medication-related decision support necessary to advance the practice of evidence-based medicine and to achieve meaningful use of health IT.

For EMR vendors, Medi-Span Clinical delivers CCHIT-compliant medication-related CDS and enables client organisations to meet multiple criteria for meaningful use. It was developed architecturally to adapt easily to a continuously evolving certification environment, with a flexible platform that can grow and expand to meet future criteria with minimal impact to customers.

For clinicians, Medi-Span Clinical delivers a full slate of medication-related CDS features, including drug interactions, route contraindications and drug allergy alerts. It provides links to supporting medical evidence, the ability to turn off individual interactions or allergic reactions and flexible screening capabilities. Finally, Medi-Span Clinical features a full range of application programming interfaces (APIs), including those that support dose screening and recommended drug orders; identification of therapeutic duplications; pregnancy, lactation and age- and gender-conflict checking; and drug-to-disease screening.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the acquisition of Shanghai Datong Medical Information Technology Co., Ltd., a drug decision support provider in China. Datong's products will enable Elsevier to enter the emerging clinical decision support (CDS) market in China, helping Chinese hospitals to improve their quality of care through better drug usage and reduced prescription errors.

Datong's flagship product 'Clinical Drug Consultation and Safety Monitoring System' is embedded in the hospital's computerised physician order system and provides drug based alerts and warnings at order entry as well as drug reference information. Launched in early 2002, the product is used by hospitals in 123 cities across 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipal cities in China. Datong's new products 'Utilization Analysis and Controls System for Anti-Bacteria Agents' and 'Prescription Review and Evaluation Program' are unique tools which help hospitals comply with new drug usage safety regulations.

After the acquisition, Elsevier will integrate its global advanced CDS content and technology with Datong's locally-tailored products and services to help Chinese hospitals and pharmacies to achieve reform objectives.

Financial details of the acquisition are not being disclosed.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, is set to unveil the next generation of clinical decision support (CDS) featuring Smart Content at the annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), February 20-24, 2011, in Orlando, Fla. With this initiative, the global publisher seeks to improve healthcare quality while reducing costs.

While fragmented information systems, poor communication and high costs still plague healthcare, Elsevier's information and point-of-care technology solutions optimise decisions and actions to improve the overall quality, safety and cost-effectiveness of care. Smart Content - medical research, knowledge, education and data optimised for greater usability by providers and payers - will improve care quality and safety even further.

Providers and payers are working hard to respond to the national push to form accountable care organisations and to qualify for meaningful use incentives. Elsevier Clinical Decision Support (CDS) supports those efforts by delivering actionable clinical content, care planning and documentation, drug reference and decision support, learning and performance management, data mining and analytic solutions for provider, pharmacy and payer organisations - all of which is enhanced through the innovation of Smart Content. Smart Content affects clinicians across the healthcare spectrum by ensuring that evidence-based information is delivered in a clear, actionable form that is tailored to the task at hand.

In addition to presentations and demonstrations at the Elsevier booth (#2541), analysts and media at HIMSS will learn more about how 'Smart Content Drives Smart Applications - The Future of Using Knowledge in Healthcare,' at a special Breakfast Briefing on February 22. Elsevier will demonstrate how the next generation of CDS will improve quality, safety and efficiency, enhancing how data and evidence that is selected and delivered to clinicians will help clinicians produce better, faster diagnoses and more effective treatments.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced the launch of a new monitoring service, Competency Watch. The service provides high-end, evidence-based information for companies to help employees at all levels develop core competencies - capabilities, skills, proficiencies, expertise and experience that add value to the company.

Leveraging competencies in employees, managers, and executives is essential to enhance individual effectiveness and develop leaders as well as to improve overall organisational performance. Competency Watch includes critical information regarding these professional competencies, information that is monitored and synthesized for rapid access and updated as new information becomes available. It provides organisations with quick, concise, unbiased summaries that match their core competencies and helps employees build the skills and knowledge they need to help the company gain a competitive advantage.

Competency Watch includes more than 200 evidence-based reports covering all aspects of professional 'soft skills' including business strategy, communications, team building, planning, innovation, entrepreneurship, human resource management, social responsibility, finance and diversity. Each report provides a definition and a summary pertaining to the competency as well as an investigation of how the competency applies to various individuals within the organisation. A case study is also provided highlighting the real-life utility of each competency.

Competency Watch has adapted EBSCO's core evidence-based methodology to areas of interest to corporate executives. The evidence-based approach identifies, selects and systematically evaluates pertinent information and creates a synthesis of the best available evidence. EBSCO's experience with evidence-based content includes the point-of-care resources it provides to hospitals and other medical institutions including the clinical decision support resource DynaMed. The company also offers similar executive decision-support tools based on proprietary, evidence-based content with Corporate Learning Watch, Food Industry Watch and Sustainability Watch.

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The UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has announced that its Impact Calculator is designed to provide a robust, transparent and consistent means of predicting and measuring the impact of a new process or system on an organisation.

Produced in Microsoft Excel, the JISC infoNet Impact Calculator can be used to define and measure the benefit achieved through any process improvement. The tool comprises four main sections which provide the user with the opportunity to document the business process they are seeking to improve; to define the nature of the benefits they are trying to achieve and how they intend to measure them; to capture detailed performance data for each of the benefits defined both prior to and at intervals after the completion of the change initiative; and to record the costs associated with realising that change. Once the relevant data has been entered into the Calculator it will then chart the level of improvement realised and determine if and when a 'return on investment' (ROI) will be - or was - realised.

Six JISC-funded pilot projects have tested the Impact Calculator within a records management context - the Universities of Nottingham, Cardiff, Aberdeen, Huddersfield, Oxford and King's College London - ranging from improvements to email management and enhancements to the retrospective appraisal of HR records. The pilot at the University of Nottingham, for instance, showed that the introduction of a new system to manage student case records would recoup the initial investment costs during its third year of implementation and would thereafter save the university a little over £4,500 per annum.

King's College London found that changes to the storage of electronic records within the estates department would save over £10,000 per annum and the University of Aberdeen calculated that the provision of email training could result in a 38 percent reduction in the volume of emails retained by staff.

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Serials Solutions, a US-based provider of tools and services for libraries and a business unit of ProQuest LLC, has announced that the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore (IIMB) has selected and successfully implemented Serials Solutions 360 Counter. With the implementation of the Serials Solutions 360 Counter, the IIMB seeks to provide librarians with an easy-to-use system for viewing, analysing and reporting on the use and return on investment (ROI) surrounding their collections.

According to the company, 360 Counter reduces the time it takes to process and analyse usage data received from COUNTER-compliant reports. The service inserts costs, associates subjects, standardises titles, calculates usage and costs and automates analysis. Users can then customise their reporting based on the criterion that's most important to stakeholders.

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are graduate business schools in India which conduct research and provide consultancy services in the field of management to various sectors of the Indian economy. They were created by the Indian Government with the aim of identifying the brightest intellectual talent available in the student community of India. IIMs play a leadership role in the nation's managerial manpower development and carry out research in emerging areas. These Institutes are recognized as premier management institutions, comparable to the best in the world for teaching, research and interaction with industries.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced a joint venture with leading China drug information provider Medicom to deliver clinical decision support to doctors in China as the country prepares for significant changes to its healthcare system. The deal allows WK Health to expand its market-leading Clinical Decision Support (CDS) and drug information business into the rapidly growing China market and creates a needed drug information infrastructure in China.

The announcement comes as the Chinese government is focused on healthcare reform to conform standards of care and an increasing number of doctors in China prepare to pursue graduate school degrees.

Medicom, located in the city of Chengdu in the Sichuan Province, has a strong footprint in the China healthcare market, providing drug information and services. Its products and services are highly complementary to those of Wolters Kluwer Health's Clinical Solutions business, which offers healthcare professionals fast access to evidence-based medical information that helps clinicians effectively manage patient care on a daily basis. The combined offering is projected to create a robust library of clinical content that physicians can access at the point of learning as well as at the point of care with patients.

As part of the agreement, Wolters Kluwer Health will have a controlling interest in the joint venture. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Jordan Hospital has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the electronic order set solution for the organisation.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform, one of ProVation Order Sets' primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 400,000 clinicians.

Central to this capability is the One Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a unique, structured approach to data management, One Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 8,500 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 97,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 385,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Essent Healthcare has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the electronic order set solution for the system's five hospitals.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform, one of ProVation Order Sets' primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 400,000 clinicians.

Central to this capability is the One Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a unique, structured approach to data management, One Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 8,500 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 97,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 385,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offers the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets features vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Community Memorial Health System has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the electronic order set solution for its two hospitals.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform, one of ProVation Order Sets' primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 400,000 clinicians.

Central to this capability is the One Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a unique, structured approach to data management, One Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 8,500 topics in 17 medical specialties and includes more than 97,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 385,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offer the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets feature vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Business information provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that Rush-Copley Medical Center has selected its Pharmacy Xpert to more effectively manage medication therapy and improve pharmacist efficiency. Pharmacy Xpert is a one-of-a-kind clinical intelligence dashboard that helps hospital pharmacists better manage medication therapy to improve outcomes, reduce costs, and manage risk.

Pharmacy Xpert combines three critical elements - real-time clinical surveillance, comprehensive patient data, and patient-specific Micromedex reference content - into a single dashboard. The real-time surveillance capability uses clinical profiles to automatically identify patients who are at risk of an adverse event, such as a potentially lethal combination or dosage of medications. It also helps pharmacists save thousands of dollars in medication costs by identifying alternative, yet equally effective, medication therapies - such as a lower-cost oral medication in place of a drug administered intravenously. Once the at-risk patients are identified the pharmacist then has access to all the clinical data they need to make the appropriate medication recommendation.

Pharmacy Xpert is part of the Clinical Xpert suite of clinical workflow solutions. It can be quickly integrated within any hospital IT environment - including hospitals using platforms from Cerner, Eclipsys, Epic, GE, MEDITECH, McKesson and Siemens.

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Business information provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced the acquisition of GeneGo, a provider of biology and disease information, analytics, and decision support solutions for pharmaceutical research and development. Effective immediately, GeneGo will become part of the Healthcare & Science business of Thomson Reuters. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The acquisition enables Thomson Reuters to provide the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and academic research communities with solutions that provide better understanding of the underlying mechanism of disease and potential therapies. GeneGo's scientific expertise and assets in biology-driven drug discovery complement the Thomson Reuters life sciences portfolio that covers drug pipeline competitive intelligence, patents, and chemistry.

GeneGo's capabilities include MetaBase, a comprehensive and respected knowledge base in systems biology; expertise in analytics, data management, and value-added services; an experienced management team and a skilled scientific staff; and a successful track record deploying decision support systems.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the availability of an iPhone App that gives whenever, wherever access to users of First Consult, an online clinical information resource that delivers quick, trusted answers to clinical questions at the point-of-care. The app is available as a free download from the Apple App Store and works on Apple's iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices.

Access is available to all First Consult individual and institutional subscribers as part of the subscription for no additional charge. Free 60-day trial evaluations are also available. Individuals who download the app by January 31, 2011, automatically are entered into a drawing to win an iPad. In addition, the institution with the most downloads of the app by the same date will be awarded an iPad for library use.

The new First Consult App was developed in partnership with the mobility team within the Information Services practice at Infosys. It supports physicians, residents and medical students who may lack an immediate data connection within a hospital, office or medical school but who still need instant, user-friendly access to the latest information on patient evaluation, diagnosis, clinical management, prognosis, and prevention from First Consult.

The release of the First Consult iPhone App coincides with physicians' growing interest in mobile devices. Sixty-four percent of physicians owned smartphones in 2009, a figure that is expected to reach 81 percent by 2012, according to Manhattan Research. Moreover, 94 percent of physicians who own smartphones use them to communicate, manage personal and business workflows, and access medical information, says a 2010 survey from Spyglass Consulting Group.

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The British National Formulary (BNF) and MedKeeper, a provider of clinical and workflow pharmacy tools, have announced a partnership to extend support for local content management by providing a locally installable intranet version. The 61st edition of the BNF will include content from both BNF and BNF for Children (BNFC) together with a tool for the management of local content, building on MedKeeper's experience in the development of pharmacy software. This is expected to contribute to safer prescribing, dispensing and administration of medicines by improving point of care access to BNF guidance and local formulary information.

The BNF seeks to provide up-to-date, practical guidance on prescribing, dispensing and administering medicines. It aims to enable healthcare professionals to maximise the benefits of drug treatment and minimise the risks, while encouraging good compliance with treatment. The publication is supposedly consulted over three million times a week and regarded as the number one prescribing resource by four out of five professionals in the UK Statistics taken from a Medicines Information Survey conducted by independent market research agency Kantar Health, 2010. BNFC claims to be an up-to-date and comprehensive source of guidance on how to use medicines to treat children.

The BNF is a product of a joint venture between the BMJ Group and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. The BNFC is a product of the joint venture among the BMJ Group, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacists Group and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. The BNF and BNFC are published by Pharmaceutical Press and BMJ Group on behalf of the joint ventures.

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The British National Formulary (BNF) has announced the launch of Knowledge Integration Solutions for safer and more accurate electronic prescribing and dispensing of drugs in the NHS.

The BNF's clinical decision support and knowledge products include a range of data sets aligned with nationally mandated coding schemes for system interoperability which generate contextually relevant active alerts within the user's workflow. It also enables doctors, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals to check electronically for allergies, drug interactions, duplicate therapy, contra-indications and dose ranges.

The BNF now also provides a range of data sets and tools to allow the integration of referential and dose information into clinical workflows to aid the cataloguing of medicines and management of medicines policies across a Trust. These new digital developments enable its data sets to be integrated with Cerner's NHS Millennium application. BNF knowledge continues to be available within EMIS, the main e-prescribing system in UK primary care.

Pharmacists can also benefit from BNF's partnership with McLernon Computers, enabling pharmacists to access BNF or BNF for Children information when and where they need it. Additional access is also available to other key references such as Martindale and Stockley on the MedicinesComplete platform. Contextual links from the Ascribe Electronic Prescribing application to the relevant information in the BNF is expected to help pharmacists in the dispensing process.

The BNF is a joint publication of the BMJ Group and Pharmaceutical Press on behalf of the British Medical Association and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. The publication is consulted over 3 million times a week and regarded as the number one prescribing resource by 4 out of 5 professionals in the NHS.

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Drug information and medication management solutions provider Gold Standard/Elsevier, US, has announced that Thrifty White Drug Stores has licensed Alchemy as the new drug database and decision support solution for all of its pharmacy and telepharmacy dispensing systems. Thrifty White Drug Stores is an employee-owned pharmacy with 88 stores in six states.

Thrifty White emphasises the use of technology to streamline the prescription filling process so the pharmacist is available to counsel and answer patients’ questions. The company will use Alchemy’s drug product database, drug decision support and patient education to enhance their drug dispensing system and provide drug information to pharmacists instantly.

Alchemy’s Drug Product database delivers drug data compliant with NCPDP telecommunication and electronic prescribing standards for brand and generic prescription drugs, over-the-counter products, herbals, vitamins, nutritional products, medical devices and diagnostic kits.

Alchemy Drug Decision Support evaluates the patient’s complete drug regimen for potential problems and presents concise, relevant notifications to help the healthcare provider make informed drug therapy decisions. Alchemy also meets FDA requirements for consumer medication information, with patient education sheets that serve as counseling aids at the point of care and reassuring take-home references.

Alchemy is an integrated drug database and drug decision support engine that improves clinical and financial outcomes. Better data modelling ensures the most current and accurate drug content and decision support, while superior customer service and advanced technology enable the simplest and most cost-effective installation and maintenance. Alchemy delivers actionable answers for users in all healthcare settings, leading the industry in reducing alert fatigue for improved patient safety.

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Business information provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced the launch of Thomson Reuters Pharmacy Xpert - a clinical intelligence dashboard that seeks to help hospital pharmacists better manage medication therapy to improve outcomes, reduce costs and manage risk. The product claims to combine three critical elements that give pharmacists the data they need to manage medication therapy more efficiently. These include real-time clinical surveillance, comprehensive patient data and integrated, patient-specific Micromedex reference content.

The Pharmacy Xpert real-time clinical surveillance capability uses clinical profiles to automatically identify patients who are at risk of an adverse event, such as a potentially lethal combination or dosage of medications. It is also seen to help pharmacists save thousands of dollars in medication costs by identifying alternative, yet equally effective, medication therapies - such as a lower-cost oral medication in place of a drug administered intravenously.

Included with the solution are more than 50 pre-built profiles that cover the following categories: antimicrobial monitoring, anticoagulation monitoring, glycemic monitoring, intravenous-to-oral conversion, narrow therapeutic indexing and patient safety. The profiles have been developed using Micromedex evidence-based reference content.

Using data aggregated from disparate information systems throughout the hospital, the single screen dashboard is projected to present pharmacists with comprehensive data about their patients. This includes critical lab values, medication lists, vital signs, microbiology reports, demographics and transcribed reports.

It also includes integrated Micromedex evidence-based reference information. The pharmacist can now access, with a single click, patient-specific Micromedex content for any prescribed medication directly from the patient record. With real-time access to this comprehensive patient data and reference content, pharmacists can expect to be equipped with all the information they need to make fully informed treatment recommendations more efficiently.

Pharmacy Xpert is part of the Clinical Xpert suite of clinical workflow solutions. It can be integrated within any hospital IT environment - including hospitals using platforms from Cerner, Eclipsys, Epic, GE, MEDITECH, McKesson and Siemens - giving pharmacists full access to the clinical dashboard in just a few weeks.

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Scientific and medical publisher Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc., US, has announced that its Anatomy on the Go flash cards are now available as an iPhone application. In the two weeks immediately following its release, the anatomy flash cards app reportedly broke the Top Ten in the paid medical and top grossing app rankings, and remains a strong seller.

The flash cards are based on the Atlas of Anatomy, co-edited by Anne Gilroy, Brian MacPherson and Lawrence Ross. The native app for iPhone and iPod touch was developed by Modality, Inc.

Designed for self-testing, reference and patient education, the app has already received numerous positive customer reviews, according to the company. Anatomy on the Go also offers features such as multi-touch user interface navigation through 367 full-colour annotated images; custom pin-point and structure labeling; quiz mode to test mastery of must-know anatomy; bookmarking to provide quick reference in clinical settings or course review sessions; index to quickly locate any structure in the app; study mode for image and annotation browsing; and instant access to additional online resources like Google and Wikipedia.

The Anatomy on the Go App is available from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Centegra Health System has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the electronic order set solution for the system's three hospitals.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform, one of ProVation Order Sets' primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 360,000 clinicians.

Central to this capability is the One Click Updates tool, which leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a unique, structured approach to data management, One Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 8,300 topics in 16 medical specialties and includes more than 80,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 385,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offer the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets feature vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced that its clinical reference tool, DynaMed, has partnered with McMaster University's Health Information Research Unit to help physicians understand the scope of the medical research being published every day.

Through this partnership, physicians from around the world, combining the McMaster University and DynaMed communities, will rate the most important research articles for specific relevance at the point of care and identify the practice-changing articles across all disciplines.

Given the sheer volume of the new information being published, it is practically impossible for a practicing physician to read every article or to identify which articles contain research that needs to be put into practice. Having a mechanism to synthesise the new medical evidence into a useable format and rate the relevance is becoming more and more essential. The agreement between McMaster University and DynaMed provides physicians with the information they need to know - the best available evidence - when and where they need it most - at the point of care.

McMaster University and DynaMed add context to the medical literature allowing hospitals and healthcare providers to make decisions based on the best available evidence. The Health Information Research Unit at McMaster University has established a process to identify high-quality medical research and has recruited a global network of thousands of physicians spanning all disciplines that evaluates the clinical relevance and newsworthiness of high quality research articles.

DynaMed is a point-of-care clinical reference and decision support resource that identifies the best available evidence. It uses a team of physicians, health professionals from other disciplines and scientists trained in research methodology to critically analyse the content; summarizes research evidence for rapid application; and makes the information available for physicians to find in the moment-to-moment context of patient care.

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Healthcare information provider Thomson Reuters, US, has released the latest version of its Clinical Xpert Navigator mobile clinical data application. The new version allows hospital-based clinicians to access complete patient clinical data - including laboratory results, medications, vital signs, observations, transcribed reports, demographics, and more via their iPhone, iPod touch, and iPadTM devices. A demonstration of the new functionality is available at clinicalxpert.com/iphone.

Clinical Xpert aggregates real-time data feeds from disparate hospital information systems and creates a single patient record. This patient information is then pushed out to different applications for clinicians via the Web and mobile devices. The tool can be quickly integrated within any hospital IT environment - including hospitals using platforms from Cerner, Eclipsys, Epic, GE, MEDITECH, McKesson and Siemens. In just a few weeks, hospital clinicians can begin accessing their real-time patient data anytime, anywhere.

Clinical Xpert has been providing mobile patient data to hospital clinicians for over ten years. With this latest enhancement, it now supports more mobile platforms than any other mobile data vendor. In addition to supporting clinicians using the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad devices, Clinical Xpert also supports BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Palm mobile platforms.

The Clinical Xpert suite of workflow solutions includes Navigator for rounding physicians, CareFocus for real-time clinical surveillance, Billing for recording charges for clinical procedures performed in the hospital, and Pharmacy Xpert for more efficiently managing the hospital pharmacists medication therapy.

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Interactive learning apps developer Modality, Inc., US, and Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc. have announced that Anatomy on the Go App is available on the App Store. This native app for iPhone and iPod touch combines a variety of customisation, quizzing and self-assessment tools with 367 exquisite full-colour illustrations and contextual notes from Thieme's Anatomy on the Go Flash Cards, edited by Anne M. Gilroy, and based on the Atlas of Anatomy by Gilroy et al.

The Anatomy on the Go App includes such features as innovative Multi-Touch user interface navigation through 367 full-colour annotated images; custom pinpoint and structure labeling; quiz mode to test mastery of must-know anatomy; bookmarking to provide quick reference in clinical settings or course review sessions; comprehensive index to quickly locate any structure in the app; study mode for image and annotation browsing; and instant access to additional information on Google, Wikipedia and PubMed.

The Anatomy on the Go App is available for a prescribed fee from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at http://www.itunes.com/appstore.

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UpToDate, part of healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that it has added a section on Hospital Medicine to its evidence-based clinical information resource. UpToDate in Hospital Medicine will include both existing content as well as additional topics developed specifically for hospital medicine clinicians. This new section will be available to subscribers effective December 1, 2010.

UpToDate is an evidence-based resource that provides fast, accurate clinical answers to physicians and other medical professionals, particularly at the point of care. UpToDate is available online via computer or mobile device.

The Editor-in-Chief for this new section will be Mark Aronson, MD.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Sansum Clinic will deploy Medi-Span to provide clinicians with point-of-care access to comprehensive drug information and medication decision support. Sansum Clinic is a nonprofit healthcare organisation between the Los Angeles Basin and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Medi-Span provides the comprehensive, up-to-date drug information and clinical decision support systems clinicians need to work efficiently and protect patients. Medi-Span products provide clinicians with drug information that will assist in making difficult drug therapy decisions, improving patient outcome, minimising patient risks and containing costs.

When integrated with EMR/EHR systems, Medi-Span's product suite assists with patient care and education; screening for potential interactions; pricing and reimbursement decision making; and ensuring orders are properly entered and therapies are not replicated unnecessarily. A full list of Medi-Span's databases and tools for healthcare facilities is available at medispan.com/health-care-facilities.aspx.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced a new version of its online research tool, BrainNavigator. The first version, introduced in 2008, was reportedly well received by the neuroscience researcher community and received the PROSE Award in 2009. In the updated version, BrainNavigator 3.0, Elsevier has added new content and functionality to give researchers additional tools to accelerate their research.

The product now includes the Rhesus Monkey atlas, developed by Editors-in-Chief, Professors George Paxinos and Charles Watson of the University of New South Wales in collaboration with Michael Petrides from McGill University in Montreal. Version 3.0 also features the Atlas of the Human Brain, developed by Dr. Paxinos, Prof. Jürgen Mai and Dr. Thomas Voss at the University of Düsseldorf in Germany.

BrainNavigator is an online, interactive, 3D software tool that seeks to extend and advance the application of brain atlases and maps images of brain anatomy, helping neuroscience researchers save time and improve the quality of their daily research. It helps locate the position of structures within the brain, making visualisation and communication about scientific findings about the brain easier.

In addition to providing significant new functionalities designed to further support the neuroscientist's workflow in the lab, the new version of BrainNavigator continues to integrate digitised versions of the leading atlases. Other new functions include linking to the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas gene expression database; the ability to create and save a series of slices from 3D to 2D; inclusion of fibre tracts; and inclusion of the rat and mouse chemoarchitectonic atlases.

Offering both free and subscription-based content, BrainNavigator is used by the National Institutes of Health, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and other research institutions.

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Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that it has expanded the expert clinical content in Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills to include 100 perioperative nursing procedures. The new perioperative procedures are the latest addition to the comprehensive list of essential medical-surgical, critical care, maternal-neonatal, pediatric, psychiatric, and emergency nursing procedures that make up the trusted online clinical resource.

Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills provides nurses with accurate, step-by-step guidance for more than 1,050 evidence-based procedures. The online resource provides skills checklists and competency tests for each procedure to help facilities verify staff competence. Each procedure undergoes a thorough annual review process to ensure the most up-to-date clinical information is provided. Facilities can customise and add procedures to meet their specific needs.

The new perioperative procedures are available online and through iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad devices to subscribing institutions as part of their quarterly update.

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Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced the launch of a clinical decision support site, 5MinuteConsult.com. Launched at the American Academy of Family Physicians' (AAFP) 2010 Scientific Assembly after successful beta tests, 5MinuteConsult.com seeks to help healthcare professionals quickly obtain critical information for the diagnosis, treatment and management of thousands of diseases and conditions.

A key advantage of 5MinuteConsult.com is the amount of information it gives. Continuously updated by healthcare professionals, it ensures that information provided in response to clinical questions is brief and accurate so that it can be used for immediate patient care.

In addition to the accuracy of content, two features of 5MinuteConsult.com that received high praise during beta tests are the procedure and physical therapy videos and patient handouts. Videos cover more than 200 procedures and physical therapy techniques and are highly instructional. The site also includes customisable handouts for patients that cover important information on their condition and instructions for treatment and management. Handouts are available in English and Spanish and can be printed or emailed directly to patients.

Other features of 5MinuteConsult.com include: drug monographs containing patient and family education; more than 180 diagnostic and treatment algorithms; step-by-step procedures; diagnostic tests; and thousands of images. The latest version includes a mobile-friendly site version to help family medicine physicians, internists, nurse practitioners and physician assistants at the point-of-care with patients. Healthcare professionals also gain point-of-care CME credits as they search content.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced an exclusive partnership with the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI), a recognised global leader in evidence-based healthcare resources based at the University of Adelaide, Australia. The move is part of an expansion of the nursing, allied health, and medical content delivered to customers of products in the Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) journals and Ovid brands.

Under this agreement, LWW and Ovid will deliver JBI COnNECT+ (Clinical Online Network of Evidence for Care and Therapeutics) to its global clinical point-of-care services market immediately, with an expansion into all markets beginning in October 2012. JBI COnNECT+ is JBI's web portal for content and user tools designed to assist healthcare providers to access, appraise, and use evidence-based information in clinical decision-making processes. In addition, LWW and Ovid are now the exclusive global channels for online access to an expanded version of JBI's PACEsetterS publication, which brings the latest advances in evidence-based practice information, audit and implementation for healthcare providers and consumers.

This is the first step in a deeper long-term collaboration between JBI, LWW, and Ovid focusing on opportunities to further develop and integrate JBI content and tools into multiple Wolters Kluwer Health destinations.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that Morehead Memorial Hospital - a not-for-profit, 108-bed hospital in Eden, N.C. - has implemented its Clinical Xpert to improve care through real-time clinical surveillance and instant access to patient data.

A mobile data system, Clinical Xpert gathers clinical data from across the hospital information system and delivers real-time patient data to any caregiver at the point-of -care through a web portal or mobile devices. Using CareFocus, one of the components of the Clinical Xpert suite, caregivers can quickly identify at-risk patients and respond immediately - improving care, saving lives, and reducing costs.

Morehead originally identified Clinical Xpert as a way to manage scheduled and unscheduled system downtime. The solution allows continued access to clinical information even when the hospital information system briefly goes offline, ensuring clinicians have uninterrupted access to critical patient data. Recognising the immediate impact CareFocus could have on patient safety and clinical quality, Morehead implemented the solution.

Named the KLAS Category Leader for Mobile Data Systems for eight consecutive years, Clinical Xpert helps providers improve clinical quality and patient safety while reducing treatment costs.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that St. Mary's Medical Center has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as the organisation's electronic order set solution. Located in Huntington, W. Va., St. Mary's Medical Center claims to be the region's leading medical provider. It is Joint Commission accredited with Centers of Excellence in cardiac care, cancer treatment, emergency/trauma services and neuroscience.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution. It provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform, one of ProVation Order Sets' primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence. This includes direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 360,000 clinicians.

Central to this capability is the One Click Updates tool. The tool leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a unique, structured approach to data management, One Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 7,700 topics in 15 medical specialties and includes more than 80,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 260,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offer the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets feature vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has expanded its Micromedex CareNotes patient education system to include coverage in 15 languages. Until now CareNotes was available only in English and Spanish. Customers will now have access to a core set of CareNotes and DrugNotes in Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), French (Canadian), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

Used by over 3,000 hospitals, the CareNotes System has been a leading source for complete and reliable patient education materials for more than 10 years. With this enhanced offering, CareNotes seeks to provide customers with translated patient education to meet the needs of over 80 percent of the US non-English speaking population.

Presented as fully customisable documents, CareNotes helps educate patients about their conditions, medications, laboratory tests, follow-up care, psychosocial issues, post-discharge care, and continuing health. By providing a single, trusted source for evidence-based patient education materials, CareNotes helps hospitals and health providers improve patient compliance with care plans, patient satisfaction, and clinical outcomes. CareNotes patient education content can be accessed online and can also be integrated within other electronic hospital and healthcare information systems.

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Drug information and medication management solutions provider Gold Standard/Elsevier, US, has announced the launch of MEDcounselor Languages, a module that provides trusted MEDcounselor consumer medication information in 12 foreign languages. The new MEDcounselor Languages will enable healthcare providers to help non-English speaking patients better understand their drug therapy, take their medications safely, and avoid potentially harmful errors.

Based on state regulations and customer requests, the new languages offered within MEDcounselor Languages include Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Creole (Haitian), French, Japanese, Italian, Korean, Polish, Russian, Tagalog and Vietnamese - along with currently available Spanish and English. Additional languages will be available in 2011.

MEDcounselor Languages offers peer-reviewed content on the most frequently used US prescription and over-the-counter drugs (such as medication uses, interactions and side effects), printable patient handouts, and compliance with national standards for Consumer Medication Information (CMI). MEDcounselor Languages are available as an added module to Gold Standard's Clinical Pharmacology, a point-of-care drug reference, and Alchemy, an integrated drug database and decision support engine.

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Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that SUNY Downstate Medical Center will provide the expert clinical content from Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills to nurses in their facility. SUNY Downstate Medical Center is a leading urban medical center in the US, serving over 2.3 million people.

Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills gives nurses accurate, step-by-step guidance for almost 1,000 procedures. The online resource provides skills checklists and competency tests for each procedure to help facilities verify staff competence. Each procedure undergoes a thorough annual review process to ensure the most up-to-date clinical information is provided. Facilities can customise the programme and procedures to meet their specific needs.

Earlier this month, LWW announced that Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills is now optimised for Apple web-enabled devices. The latest enhancement will give nurses immediate access to critical procedures, quick lists and skills checklists, including videos and images from anywhere in the hospital.

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Healthcare technologies and services provider QuadraMed has announced a partnership with Clinical Practice Model Resource Center (CPMRC), an Elsevier firm engaged in developing clinical practice guidelines for healthcare. Under the deal, CPMRC will provide QuadraMed's clients with nursing and allied health clinical documentation, care planning, and clinical practice guidelines, as well as transformation services.

CPMRC brings evidence-based clinical content products and practice transformation services that assist healthcare organisations in creating a healthy work culture and interdisciplinary integration. The partnership will enable meaningful clinician workflow based on evidence-based best practices, which will accelerate documentation processes and help improve the quality of care. With QuadraMed's integrated Computerised-Patient Record (QCPR) solutions, health systems will no longer need to develop their own content from scratch, which will enable nurses and allied health professionals to bring evidence-based information to the patient directly at the point of care.

As a result of this partnership, QuadraMed clients will be able to join the CPMRC International Consortium, a voluntary organisation made up of hundreds of hospitals, health systems, and educational institutions. Through CPMRC's interdisciplinary content, the integrated solution will also enhance the education of clinicians on the use of health information technology, which will help them meet meaningful-use requirements.

CPMRC's Clinical Practice Models embrace the concept of providing a complete solution to assist healthcare organisations with practice transformation and the transition to electronic health records. Their integrated solutions help standardise care, while ensuring seamless adoption by the clinical team.

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Content enhancement and knowledge services provider Scope eKnowledge Center, a Quatrro Group company, has announced an initiative to support the continued enhancement of ProQuest's Medical Evidence Matters. ProQuest's Medical Evidence Matters online healthcare knowledge management system is designed to assist decision makers in their treatment choices for patients, allowing clinicians to assess therapy options for known medical conditions by comparing outcomes from peer-reviewed literature.

Scope's team of medical subject matter experts will be supporting the Medical Evidence Matters' medical content team, to extract data such as type of study, sampling methodology, demographic data, test results, statistical analysis, therapy and outcomes from medical treatment research articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The aim is to enable ProQuest to expand the research tool to cover more disease states.

According to Scope CEO, R. Sivadas, Scope is uniquely positioned to serve as a content provider for ProQuest's enhancement of its Medical Evidence Matters tool, enabling end users to spend less time reading, and more time with patients. The company's in-house MDs are currently providing services that support the Medical Evidence Matter's medical content team. Through this support, ProQuest expects to continue crucial, timely updates while also expanding the disease modules offered.

ProQuest's decision to enhance the Medical Evidence Matters tool with more disease states meant more editorial resources. Craig Emerson, Vice-President, Editorial for ProQuest, has said that ProQuest evaluated Scope's evidence-based medicine editorial capabilities and felt Scope will be a solid contributor.

ProQuest creates specialised information resources and technologies that propel successful research, discovery and lifelong learning. The company offers the expertise of brands such as CSA, UMI, Chadwyck-Healey, SIRS and eLibrary.

Scope eKnowledge Center is an award winning provider of outsourced, cost-effective content enhancement and knowledge services to the global information industry. The company uses a combination of deep subject matter expertise in a number of business and STM domains, innovative technology and proprietary intellectual property to provide world class services. In operation for over 22 years, Scope has built a clientele loyal to its abstracting, indexing, semantic enrichment, database/directory development and content authoring solutions. Scope is also the publisher of the daily Knowledgespeak newsletter, an authoritative news service focusing on the STM information industry.

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Multinational computer, technology and IT consulting corporation IBM, US, and ActiveHealth Management, an Aetna subsidiary, have unveiled a new cloud computing and clinical decision support solution. IBM and ActiveHealth Management worked together to create the Collaborative Care Solution that gives physicians and patients access to the information they need to improve the overall quality of care, without the need to invest in new infrastructure. The solution is built on combining IBM's Health Information Framework, IBM Initiate Exchange and advanced health analytics from Cognos 8 Business Intelligence and predictive analytics from IBM Research with ActiveHealth CareEngine clinical decision support and the Active CareTeam.

Patients often have to carry their health history information with them from visit to visit. Doctors don't always have the information they need when they need to quickly make patient care decisions. The Collaborative Care Solution addresses these issues by gathering patients' health data from multiple sources to create a detailed patient record.

The solution employs advanced analytics software to provide an innovative approach to patient care in which physicians can easily access and automatically analyse a patient's condition. By combining information from electronic medical records, claims, medication and lab data with ActiveHealth's evidence-based clinical decision support CareEngine and delivering it through an IBM cloud computing platform, doctors will be able to deliver more complete and accurate decisions about patient care. Further, this solution can help reduce spending on ineffective treatments and unnecessary tests. According to a recent study by Thomson Reuters, approximately $800 billion is wasted each year in the U.S on health care considered ineffective. It can also help provide better insight for treating patients with chronic conditions such as coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure and diabetes, which account for 80 percent of all healthcare costs.

With all healthcare data and IT resources managed in a cloud environment, the system will enable the coordination of patient care among teams, so doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, aides, therapists and pharmacists can easily access, share and address information about patients from a single source. The solution can also show trends in how patients are responding, for instance, to treatment for chronic asthma or adhering to drug regimens and automatically alert doctors to conflicting or missed prescriptions.

For one fixed monthly fee, healthcare organisations will have access to all the tools and services without having to make significant upfront investments - avoiding the challenge of updating systems when clinical guidelines or reporting requirements change or when patient loads grow. Additionally, the solution provides advanced analytics that help physicians or entire healthcare organisations measure their performance against national or hospital quality standards.

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Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills is now optimised for Apple web-enabled devices, offering nurses convenient and efficient access to nearly 1,000 essential nursing procedures.

Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills gives nurses accurate, step-by-step guidance for almost 1,000 procedures. The subscription-based, online service provides skills checklists and competency tests for each procedure to help facilities verify their staff's competence. Each procedure undergoes a thorough annual review process to ensure the most up-to-date clinical information is provided. Facilities can customise the programme and procedures to meet their needs.

An increasing number of healthcare professionals are using Web-enabled devices to improve patient care. The latest enhancement to Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills will give nurses immediate access to critical procedures, quick lists and skills checklists, including videos and images from anywhere in the hospital.

To access Lippincott's Nursing Procedures and Skills, customers can go to http://procedures.lww.com via their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad and enter a username/password to access their institutional account. There is no additional charge for current subscribers.

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E-Resource Access and Management Services (ERAMS) provider Serials Solutions, US, will add new consolidated reports to its 360 Counter e-resource assessment service. 360 Counter, part of Serials Solutions 360 services, enables librarians to assess collections, justify expenditures and optimise purchases. The introduction of these consolidated reports gives 360 Counter customers the ability to take their complex usage data and create six new pre-filtered reports.

These new reports provide better visibility into how collections are being accessed and used, including the top 100 collection titles receiving the heaviest usage; those that are the most expensive; those with a positive or negative percent change in use; and the comparison of titles provided by two or more content providers, which takes advantage of 360 Counter overlap analysis. Librarians can also generate a report, listing titles alphabetically so it is easier to navigate and drill-down to find information.

The pre-filtered functionality of consolidated reports includes titles from two or more providers; journals and platforms with a positive or negative change in use; top 100 journals calculated by use; and the 100 most expensive journals based on cost-per-use. Acquisition librarians will now have easier access to critical information about the use of their collections. Also, they will be able to quickly locate required nuggets of data so they can look at usage of material vis-à-vis acquisition costs.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced that a new service within its DynaMed point-of-care clinical reference will link clinicians to cost assistance programmes designed to help patients afford their medications. DynaMed drug topics now include links to NeedyMeds, a non-profit organisation that provides patients with free information on how to obtain medication cost assistance - with or without health insurance.

To help clinicians provide comprehensive information on pharmaceutical cost assistance to their patients, DynaMed has added direct links from most drug topics to the related NeedyMeds information page. The Medication Cost Assistance Program section of the drug topic can be referenced to share information with the patient on cost assistance and/or discounted rates for drugs. NeedyMeds also provides information on federal and state programmes for medical care for adults and children, and cost assistance programmes for medical supplies.

DynaMed is a clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other healthcare professionals for use primarily at the point-of-care - providing the best available evidence for making informed clinical decisions. With clinically-organised summaries for thousands of topics and daily updates, DynaMed claims to be the only evidence-based reference shown to answer most clinical questions during practice.

Most of the current assistance programmes require US residency, but non-US programmes can be added to DynaMed as the information becomes available.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that East Tennessee Children's Hospital has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, to automate the creation, deployment and maintenance of order sets. Located in Knoxville, Tenn., the 152-bed East Tennessee Children's Hospital is a private, independent, not-for-profit pediatric medical center caring for children in 16 counties in East Tennessee.

ProVation Order Sets claims to be an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform, one of the primary values of ProVation Order Sets is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence. This includes direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 360,000 clinicians.

Central to this capability is the One Click Updates tool. The tool leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates, which highlights new recommendations that could potentially change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a unique, structured approach to data management, One Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers more than 7,700 topics in 15 medical specialties and includes more than 80,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 260,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offer the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based on client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets feature vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced the release of Food Industry Watch, an executive decision support tool. The new resource is designed specifically to support the information needs of corporate executives in the hospitality, food service and food production industries.

Food Industry Watch offers access to more than 200 evidence-based, industry-related reports covering topics such as compliance & regulation; food availability; food production; food safety & quality; food science & technology; food service, management; and marketing and specialty foods. The resource has adapted EBSCO's core evidence-based methodology to areas of interest to corporate executives. The evidence-based approach identifies, selects and systematically evaluates pertinent information and creates a synthesis of the best available evidence.

EBSCO's experience with evidence-based content includes Sustainability Watch and Corporate Learning Watch as well as the point-of-care resources it provides to hospitals and other medical institutions including the clinical decision support resource DynaMed. Food Industry Watch joins a collection of food industry databases available through EBSCO including Food Science Source and FSTA - Food Science & Technology Abstracts.

Food Industry Watch may be integrated into corporate portals and Intranets. The EBSCOhost Integration Toolkit allows EBSCO's content to be incorporated into an organisation's workflow-providing seamless access to premium content.

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Drug information and medication management solutions provider Gold Standard/Elsevier, US, has announced that the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has licensed MEDcounselor Drug Information, Drug IDentifer and Drug Interaction modules for its consumer website ConsumerMedSafety.org. ISMP is a federally certified patient safety organisation that focuses on preventing medication errors and adverse drug events, and offers legal protection and confidentiality for submitted patient safety and error reports.

Gold Standard licenses its MEDcounselor modules to pharmacies, consumer health information websites, online communities, health systems and managed care organisations. A specially created 'Toolkit' allows organisations to integrate MEDcounselor modules with their existing healthcare content and add search functions and links to drug information from their own Web sites or applications.

MEDcounselor modules now available via ConsumerMedSafety.org include Drug Information; Drug Identifier; and Drug Interactions.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Southern Ohio Medical Center has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, to automate the creation, deployment and maintenance of order sets. Located in Portsmouth, Ohio, the 222-bed Southern Ohio Medical Center provides emergency and surgical care, as well as a wide range of other inpatient and outpatient services.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, claims to be an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical's clinician-designed technology platform, one of ProVation Order Sets' primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 360,000 clinicians.

Central to this capability is the One Click Updates tool, which allows hospitals to easily and automatically update order sets to keep current with the latest medical evidence. Enabled by a unique, structured approach to data management, One Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets. It then enables users to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

UpToDate covers over 7,700 topics in 15 medical specialties and includes more than 80,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 260,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offer the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets feature vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced the launch of Corporate Learning Watch, a new evidence-based monitoring service that investigates learning techniques for corporate learning professionals. The service will focus on methods that can be used within businesses to facilitate employee learning.

Corporate Learning Watch builds on EBSCO's collection of expert and peer-reviewed corporate learning-related literature to present the user with non-biased actionable intelligence-an executive decision-support tool based on proprietary, evidence-based content. The resource uses a systematic approach to monitor developments in the literature and follow an established multi-step evidence-based literature surveillance process. Corporate Learning Watch provides users with the latest expert analysis and findings on corporate learning issues, all based on the evidence that is presented in the literature.

Corporate Learning Watch has adapted EBSCO's core evidence-based methodology to areas of interest to corporate executives. The evidence-based approach identifies, selects and systematically evaluates pertinent information and creates a synthesis of the best available evidence. EBSCO's experience with evidence-based content includes Sustainability Watch and the upcoming Food Industry Watch as well as the point-of-care resources it provides to hospitals and other medical institutions including the clinical decision support resource DynaMed.

Corporate Learning Watch may be integrated into corporate portals and Intranets. The EBSCOhost Integration Toolkit allows EBSCO's content to be incorporated into an organisation's workflow, providing seamless access to premium content.

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The BMJ Evidence Centre, part of the BMJ Group, UK, and the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust have announced that both parties will work together to pilot a standardised checklist of actions to help clinicians make the best decisions for their patients.

Beginning June 1, 2010, the predefined lists of orders and actions for gastro-intestinal bleeding, called Action Sets, will be instantly accessed through the Cerner electronic patient records system. They will provide doctors and nurses with evidence-based recommendations to guide treatment decisions, ensuring that patients receive the best and most appropriate care and helping to avoid mistakes.

The initiative is expected to enable clinicians at Royal Free to quickly access information about specific treatment outcomes; analyse that data to determine best practices; and quickly share the findings with other trusts - a process that is virtually impossible with paper-based medical records.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that Advantage Suite 5.0, the latest version of the market-leading decision support system for healthcare payers, will be available later this year. The Advantage Suite is used by health insurers, employers and state Medicaid agencies to integrate and analyse data in order to generate intelligence that helps them manage the cost and quality of healthcare.

Health plans, for example, use Advantage Suite for trend management, benchmarking, provider performance management and proactive care management. According to the company, Advantage Suite 5.0 will continue to deliver sophisticated analytics while improving usability, accessibility and reporting capabilities.

New features include web access that accommodates the workflow needs of data analysts and business managers; dashboard capabilities that enable users to easily create customised reports and distribute them to executives and other key stakeholders; and improved user experience delivered via an intuitive, easy-to-use interface.

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Thomson IP Management Services, part of Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced the release of Thomson IP Manager 3.1, an enterprise-scalable software application for intellectual asset management.

Thomson IP Manager helps companies more effectively manage their intellectual assets, automating the tracking of innovations, patents, trademarks, designs, licensing agreements and more. With the release of version 3.1, users will be able to pull information from their document management system directly into their portfolio management programme and easily share it with decision makers throughout the organisation. The new release offers full integration with Documentum and Interwoven, two document management systems commonly used by Thomson IP Management Services customers. It features several other system enhancements, including the ability to quickly propagate updates to large sets of records and to configure data entry forms so they are more user-friendly and efficient.

Thomson IP Manager brings together the necessary components for IP management in a centralised repository, integrating portfolio data, work flow task management and LDAP synchronisation with corporate user data.

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Healthcare consulting and software solutions company Clinical Architecture, US, has announced that Picis, a global provider of innovative information solutions for acute care settings, has selected its Symedical interoperability solution.

Symedical enables clinical applications to share patient information as actionable discrete data. Picis chose to integrate Symedical into its CareSuite family of high-acuity solutions to support new medication decision support capabilities.

Clinical Architecture specialises in meeting the integration and interoperability needs of healthcare through niche consulting and application development. With Symedical, the company has introduced a unique approach to automating the creation and ongoing management of clinical terminology maps. According to the company, meaningful clinical decision support requires a consistently accurate representation of the patient's clinical context which is possible with Symedical.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has released a new version of its electronic order set solution, ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support. The new release includes the unique One Click Updates tool, which allows hospitals to easily and automatically update order sets to keep current with the latest medical evidence.

A customisable order set authoring and management solution, ProVation Order Sets provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. One of its primary values is the continuous updates to clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, which claims to be the resource of choice for more than 360,000 clinicians.

The One Click Updates tool leverages UpToDate's Practice Changing Updates feature, which highlights new recommendations that may change usual clinical practice. Enabled by a unique, structured approach to data management, One Click Updates alerts end users to evidence that may trigger the need to modify particular order sets, allowing them to review recommended updates and apply them in a single step across multiple order sets.

Specifically, the One Click Updates feature provides a list of new practice-changing updates in a live newsfeed; identifies a list of the order sets or care plans that may be impacted by each update item; recommends specific edits to the content of the impacted order sets; and allows the user to apply recommended edits to some or all of the affected order sets or care plans in a single step.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that Hackensack University Medical Center has deployed Thomson Reuters NeoFax Online to provide physicians, nurses, and pharmacy staff in its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) with electronic, evidence-based drug information. Hackensack University Medical Center is a 775-bed academic medical center serving northern New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area.

NeoFax Online delivers neonatal reference information. It enables clinicians to check on potential drug interactions, delivers, and provides dosing calculations that account for infants' ever-changing weight. The electronic version of NeoFax was deployed by the hospital to reduce the chance of medication errors.

The NICU's new workflow eliminates several steps that can lead to medication errors and NeoFax Online assists with the hospital's ongoing infection control initiative. Books are difficult to clean and can carry and transfer infections. Removing contact with a book during the administration of medication eliminates this potential source of infection within the NICU.

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STM and scholarly publisher Wiley-Blackwell, US, has announced that its evidence-based clinical decision support product, Essential Evidence Plus (EE+), is now accessible from mobile devices. Physicians on the move can now easily find answers to challenging point-of-care questions from their iPhone, IPod Touch, Android, Blackberry or other Smartphones.

EE+ is accessible through the web, handheld computer (Pocket PC or Palm OS) and now mobile devices. The product features more than 13,000 topics, guidelines, abstracts, and evidence based summaries which are integrated and hyperlinked to content and tools, including Cochrane Reviews, daily POEM literature alerts, decision support tools and interactive diagnostic test calculators.

Topics in EE+ are written by leading clinicians and peer-reviewed by medical experts who evaluate and summarise clinical findings from thousands of medical journals. A 'Bottom Line' feature highlighting the most important recommendations by topic provides essential data for informed point-of-care decision making. All EE+ content includes a 'strength of evidence' rating for each recommendation to guide practitioners toward evidence most likely to improve health outcomes. Summary tables for at-a-glance information, algorithms for problem solving, and an extensive image library linked to a dermatology expert system are also included to optimise patient care.

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Drug decision support provider Gold Standard/Elsevier, US, has announced that it will continue to publish transparent drug pricing information, including average wholesale price (AWP) and all other current and future pricing benchmarks. The announcement comes amidst statements by other drug database suppliers indicating they will discontinue publishing AWP in 2011.

Gold Standard/Elsevier supports transparent price benchmarks for payers (health plans, patients, government agencies and employers), pharmacies and other providers for prescription drugs. The company publishes reported and calculated drug prices that are clearly distinguished within the database, and adheres to strict internal policies for populating reported versus calculated pricing fields. Drug company reported prices of AWP, WAC (wholesale acquisition cost), CMS FUL (Federal Upper Limit), and Direct Price are included in Gold Standard’s database.

Gold Standard/Elsevier provides comprehensive drug pricing data via its Alchemy integrated drug database and ProspectoRx web-based drug pricing and analysis tool. Both sources offer the most frequent and accurate updates in the industry. Following review and confirmation by editorial professionals, price changes are published ‘live’ throughout the day as they are reported by drug companies. The company’s unique Price Change Indicator tracks pricing change catalysts consistently, reporting on whether the source came from the drug company’s reports, billing unit changes or errors.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that CHRISTUS Health has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, as its electronic order set solution. In addition to automating development and maintenance, ProVation Order Sets will provide clinicians at 24 CHRISTUS Health facilities with point-of-care access to order sets and other intuitive clinical decision support tools.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, claims to be an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical’s clinician-designed technology platform, ProVation Order Sets offer automatic linking to the clinical decision support content of UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 360,000 clinicians.

UpToDate covers more than 7,700 topics in 15 medical specialties and includes more than 80,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts more than 260,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offer the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets feature vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that the Cleveland Clinic Center for Continuing Education will provide point-of-care Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit to users of MD Consult and First Consult. Users of First Consult and MD Consult will earn Point-Of-Care CME Credit as they perform searches and access relevant content to answer patient care questions. First Consult provides instant access to information on evaluation, diagnosis, clinical management, prognosis and prevention. MD Consult, a clinical reference tool, is utilised by more than 2000 healthcare organisations and 95 percent of all medical schools in the US.

After performing a search and finding the answer in MD Consult’s breadth of clinical content, physicians can then click on ‘Request CME’ and complete a short form from the Cleveland Clinic Center for Continuing Education. The Cleveland Clinic Center for Continuing Education is accredited at the highest level (with commendation) by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. By submitting the short form, physicians can earn 0.5 American Medical Association PRA (Physician’s Recognition Award) Category 1 Credit(s) for each search conducted through MD Consult and First Consult.

It has been observed that physicians are turning increasingly to the Internet for clinical information. According to a November 2009 survey commissioned by Google, 86 percent of US physicians now use the Internet to gather health, medical or prescription drug information. A 2009 Manhattan Research survey put the number at 89 percent, and one-third of physicians have claimed that they changed a patient’s treatment as the result of an Internet search. Instead of relying on the unproven information available widely on the Internet, Elsevier sees physicians gravitating more to the evidence-based clinical content provided by online tools such as MD Consult and First Consult.

MD Consult delivers instant access to full-text articles from more than 80 medical journals and Clinics, 50 medical references across a range of specialties, clinically relevant drug information, and more than 10,000 patient handouts in English and Spanish. First Consult offers an online database on patient evaluation, diagnosis, treatment, tests and prevention, interactive access to potential diagnoses and video and animated guidance on common medical procedures.

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UBM TechInsights, a provider of sophisticated information services, consulting, and management software for technology companies, has announced the formation of a Business Intelligence group.

The Business Intelligence services leverage UBM TechInsights' analysis libraries, expertise and industry insight to provide actionable reports for companies doing competitive intelligence, due diligence and/or patent licensing in the consumer electronics, semiconductor, automotive, clean technologies, legal, medical devices, and software markets. The group will also be producing reports specifically geared towards the investment community.

UBM TechInsights' 300 worldwide engineers and 19,000 reference analysis reports contain proprietary information on over 50,000 systems, components, and sub-assemblies. The Business Intelligence Group is uniquely positioned to provide customers with the knowledge they need to make informed business decisions.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that the St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, to automate the creation, deployment and maintenance of evidence-based order sets. Located in Paterson, New Jersey, the St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center is an academic tertiary medical centre and state designated trauma centre.

ProVation Order Sets is projected as an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution. The tool seeks to provide flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical’s technology platform, ProVation Order Sets offer automatic linking to the clinical decision support content of UpToDate, which covers over 8,300 topics in 16 medical specialties. UpToDate includes more than 97,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 385,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets are claimed to offer the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, the tools feature vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that Micromedex clinical decision support and CareNotes patient education content will be integrated within the M2 Health Care Information System (HCIS). M2 is an information systems vendor assisting healthcare organisations in fully maximising their return on HCIS investments.

As a result, hospitals that use the M2 HCIS will be able to seamlessly connect clinicians directly to Micromedex referential summary documents and relevant, evidence-based patient education at any point in the care process. Micromedex clinical decision support will be delivered via InfoButton, an easy-to-implement solution that integrates within a hospital's electronic medical record system, computerised prescription order entry system, pharmacy system, or Web portal. With quick access to abbreviated drug, disease, and lab content, along with the ability to link to more detailed clinical reference material, InfoButton supports the highest standard of care and speeds clinical decision making.

CareNotes helps healthcare information systems generate education material that is tailored for the patient and covers medications, diagnosis, procedures, and tests. With topics including diet, exercise, disease prevention, and a host of ‘How To’ documents, CareNotes empowers patients to actively participate in their care, and also helps meet The Joint Commission and OBRA '90 patient education guidelines. This solution enable physicians, nurses, and pharmacists to make the right clinical decisions and help their patients take a more active role in their recovery, all without disrupting their workflow.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Athens Regional Medical Center has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, to automate order set creation, deployment and maintenance. The 315-bed Athens Regional Medical Center is the cornerstone of Athens Regional Health Services, one of Northeast Georgia’s largest healthcare systems.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical’s clinician-designed technology platform, ProVation Order Sets offer automatic linking to the superior clinical decision support content of UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 360,000 clinicians.

UpToDate covers more than 8,300 topics in 16 medical specialties and includes over 97,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 385,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offer the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets feature vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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UpToDate, part of healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced the addition of Allergy and Immunology to its clinical information database. Subscribers to UpToDate can now access over 300 topics specifically devoted to allergy, asthma and immunology, and a total of over 8,300 topics across 16 specialties.

Dr Bruce S. Bochner, Dr. E. Richard Stiehm and Dr. Robert A. Wood are the Editors-in-Chief of the new allergy and immunology content. These editors and 247 physician contributors worked to develop topics that cover all the major areas of allergy, asthma and immunology.

UpToDate is an evidence-based resource that provides fast, accurate clinical answers to physicians and other medical professionals, particularly at the point of care. UpToDate is available online and can also be installed on a computer or mobile device. Widely accepted by more than 400,000 clinicians in 147 countries, UpToDate seeks to improve health outcomes by providing clinicians with current, comprehensive clinical content, including treatment recommendations based on the best medical evidence. Created by more than 4,400 editors, authors and peer reviewers from leading medical institutions, UpToDate monitors more than 440 journals to ensure that the most recent information and findings are incorporated into the content.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the addition of FDA Advisory Committee content to Pharmapendium, an online resource for preclinical, clinical and post-market drug information.

The newly added documents seek to provide preclinical and clinical drug development and regulatory affairs departments with a substantial collection of comparative scientific and regulatory data that may not be included in final FDA Approval Package documents. For the first time FDA Advisory Committee content and FDA Approval Packages can be searched simultaneously via a single source on PharmaPendium, according to Elsevier.

The expansion of searchable FDA approval coverage is projected to give pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies deeper insights into regulatory context, precedent content and the FDA drug approval process. Organised by committee, more than 140,000 pages of FDA Advisory Committee meeting minutes, rosters, supplementary documents, transcripts and PowerPoints are being added. Content from 19 CDER and CBER committees is also represented.

PharmaPendium is designed to support both scientific and business decisions within the pharma/biotech industry. The online resource seeks to provide access via a single point to searchable and trusted drug information. It covers close to 4,000 approved drugs, with integrated preclinical, clinical and post-market safety data. PharmaPendium is owned and protected by Elsevier Properties SA and used under licence.

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Business technology media and business information provider UBM TechWeb, US, has announced new subscription options from InformationWeek Analytics. InformationWeek Analytics provides business technology professionals with real-world analysis and perspective they need to run better, smarter IT organisations. More than 60,000 InformationWeek Analytics reports and briefs were downloaded by IT decision makers in 2009.

InformationWeek Analytics span technology categories from security and networking to applications and cloud computing, and can be tailored to the perspective of large-scale global enterprises or the special requirements of small and midsize corporations. The site currently houses more than 900 reports and briefs, and includes a dedicated area where technology professionals can access complete issues of InformationWeek Magazine. More than one hundred new reports featuring fresh research will become available in 2010. Members can also rate reports, which allows for deeper user interaction and engagement with the site.

Charter subscription members of InformationWeek Analytics will gain full access to the InformationWeek Analytics library of reports; peer based research and analysis to guide buying and implementing decisions; over 20 technology and IT business categories; and new reports launched every week. Charter members will also be able to access signature reports, such as the InformationWeek Salary Survey, InformationWeek 500 and the State of Security report.

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Drug decision support provider Gold Standard/Elsevier, US, has announced the availability of Clinical Pharmacology Mobile, a mobile device-optimised website offering users access to the features and functions of Clinical Pharmacology. Clinical Pharmacology is an electronic drug information and medication management reference.

Focused on supporting routine medication information needs, Clinical Pharmacology Mobile allows users to search by trade or generic drug name, indication, contraindication/precaution or adverse reaction, and to browse by monograph or classification. Clinicians can access drug monographs, multi-drug interaction reports, MedCounselor consumer medication information, drug product information, drug images and clinical calculators. In addition, users can purchase supplemental modules such as Drug IDentifier/NDC Search, IV Compatibility information and reports via Trissel’s 2 Database, Global Drug Name Directory, FormChecker hospital formulary management and OnFormulary health plan formularies.

Interested parties can experience Clinical Pharmacology Mobile at the ongoing Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual meeting in Atlanta (Elsevier’s Booth #6503/6509).

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Medical information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has launched Medi-Span Clinical, a clinical decision support (CDS) platform that delivers the functionality, interoperability and medication-related CDS necessary to advance the practice of evidence-based medicine and to achieve meaningful use of health IT.

Medi-Span Clinical was developed architecturally to easily adapt to a continuously evolving certification environment, with a flexible platform that can grow and expand to meet future criteria with minimal impact to customers.

For EMR vendors, Medi-Span Clinical delivers CCHIT-compliant medication-related clinical decision support and enables client organisations to meet multiple criteria for meaningful use, as currently defined. The platform contains a suite of Application Programming Interfaces (API) that allows health information system vendors to utilise Medi-Span content, terminology mappings and featured functionality in a manner that seamlessly integrates into new and existing EHR applications. Utilisation of APIs allows development efforts to focus on the application rather than the underlying data structure.

For clinicians, Medi-Span Clinical delivers a full slate of medication-related CDS features, including drug interactions, route contraindications and drug allergy alerts. Additionally, the Medi-Span Clinical vision features a full range of APIs, including those that support dose screening and recommended drug orders, identification of therapeutic duplications, pregnancy, lactation and age and gender conflict checking, and drug to disease screening.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that Elsevier Clinical Decision Support (CDS) will feature solutions that directly impact the quality of care at the HIMSS 2010 event in Atlanta from March 1-3. The solutions include evidence-based clinical content and tools; interdisciplinary documentation, planning and guidelines; drug decision support; interactive skills and procedures; data mining and outcomes analysis; and e-learning.

CDS representatives will present how its solutions can help clinicians, hospitals and healthcare systems improve care quality and achieve meaningful use of healthcare information and technology.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), in its recent proposed definition of meaningful use, said that the healthcare industry would be best served by ‘achieving improvements in quality, safety and efficiency, focusing on decision support for national high priority conditions, patient access to self management tools, access to comprehensive patient data, and improving population health outcomes.’ In line with this, three key Elsevier experts will discuss their perspectives on several CDS solutions at HIMSS 2010.

By following CMS’ lead and renewing its focus on care quality and efficiency, Elsevier seeks to continue its efforts to deliver evidence-based content, products and services that help medical professionals concentrate on improving care and outcomes.

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Healthcare consulting and software solutions company Clinical Architecture, US, has announced that it will introduce Symedical Recognize and new healthcare content integration services during the 2010 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) convention. The company is exhibiting (Booth: 812) at the convention which begins on March 1, 2010, at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA.

With the release of Symedical Recognize, Clinical Architecture is building on its successful introduction of Symedical, the company’s computer-assisted terminology mapping tool. The new Symedical service (API) leverages the tool’s powerful algorithms to provide real-time mapping of unknown source terms.

Symedical reduces the time and effort required to map one clinical terminology to another. However, there are many times when the terminologies involved are not known in advance. Symedical Recognize overcomes that challenge by mapping unknown terms as they are encountered. This new service builds the terminology map automatically over time, expediting the meaningful use of coded terms. The design of Symedical Recognize also accommodates the ability to code free text terms that are encountered as well.

In reaction to market demand, the company is also introducing new healthcare content integration services.

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Shared Health, Inc., a public/private health information exchange (HIE), has partnered with health information provider MEDai, Inc., US, part of STM publisher Elsevier, to provide a rich, interoperable, clinically relevant HIE platform to the state of Tennessee. This partnership seeks to deliver solutions and technologies that support clinical excellence and operating efficiencies. It comes at a time when stimulus funding is being leveraged to create an information exchange that helps drive meaningful use of healthcare information technology and care improvement across the healthcare continuum.

Shared Health Clinical Xchange improves the types of clinical information available to providers, helping physician practices operate more efficiently and deliver better overall patient care by bringing patient-centric information from an entire health care team to the point of care. By merging key clinical data with administrative data, Clinical Xchange takes practices ‘out of the silo’ and delivers a comprehensive clinical decision support solution. Clinical Xchange supports proactive and preventive health initiatives – disease management, wellness and early intervention.

MEDai’s predictive modeling and evidence-based medicine guideline compliance capability forms the core of actionable information within Shared Health’s clinical data-sharing platform, Clinical Xchange. This platform integrates clinical decision support and population management tools to better inform clinicians and help promote evidence-based guideline compliance and coordination of care. It is interoperable with any electronic medical record (EMR) and can create a longitudinal view of the patient drawn from a variety of sources, including the exam room, the lab, the pharmacy, the payer and the patient.

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IHS Inc., a US-based provider of energy-focused information, has announced the acquisition of Emerging Energy Research, an energy advisory firm, for $18 million. Emerging Energy seeks to help clients understand, leverage and exploit the technological, regulatory and competitive trends in the global emerging energy sector.

Emerging Energy Research is projected to draw on core competencies in market and competitive analysis, business intelligence, strategy assessment and global reach to offer clients advisory services, consulting services and market studies about emerging technologies in global energy markets. These include wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, ocean energy, nuclear, carbon capture and storage and hydrogen. The company is dedicated to tracking market segments on the cusp of change in the energy industry – those that are the fastest growing, the fastest changing and most impacted by technology advances, regulatory trends, market trends and industry restructuring.

According to the company, Emerging Energy delivers research-based advice, support and analysis from its international team of research experts, industry analysts and strategy consultants to executives and key decision-makers. Its customers span three core market segments: utilities, power developers/independent power producers and manufacturing (clean technology supply chain).

The acquisition is claimed to be an important fit at the intersection of two important domains for IHS - energy and environment. The company’s other acquisitions include EnvironMax, Dolphin Software and Environmental Software Providers in 2007 and 2008, and Environmental Support Solutions in 2009.

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Medical information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that UpToDate has been selected as a point-of-care reference tool by Helsebiblioteket (The Norwegian Electronic Health Library). Helsebiblioteket provides health personnel with free online access to useful and trustworthy knowledge resources - journals, databases, summarised evidence, guidelines and other tools - in order to help raise the quality of health services in Norway.

UpToDate is an evidence-based resource that provides fast, accurate clinical answers to physicians and other medical professionals, particularly at the point of care. Used by over 360,000 clinicians worldwide, UpToDate's content includes treatment recommendations based on the best medical evidence. Created by more than 4,000 editors, authors and peer reviewers from leading medical institutions, the resource monitors over 430 journals, guidelines published by major and international societies, and other resources to ensure that the most recent findings are incorporated into the content.

UpToDate has also announced a partnership with the Global Health Delivery Project to provide subscriptions to clinicians working with underserved populations outside the US. Most recently this has included making complimentary subscriptions available to clinicians providing care in Haiti. UpToDate has also worked with Partners in Health to evaluate the utility of the programme in public hospitals in Rwanda, Malawi and South Africa.

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Publishing services company Clarke Publishing Group, US, has announced a new service line at the Association of American Publisher's 2010 Professional Scholarly Publishing Annual Conference. The iConsult service line is aimed at publishers and other organisations active in professional and scholarly publishing. It is designed to provide inexpensive, flexible and convenient services that help publishers remain informed and react quickly to market developments.

There are two iConsult services presently available: Executive Briefings and Pocket Advisor. Executive Briefings is designed as an aide to strategic and tactical decision-making at the senior level. The service includes an in-person briefing from Clarke Publishing Group principal Michael Clarke on one of a number of key topics, including the impact of mobile technologies, social media, and semantic technologies on professional and scholarly publishing. Additionally, several overview presentations are available, including ‘Digital Opportunities for Publishers’ and ‘Emerging Trends in Professional and Scholarly Publishing.’ Clarke Publishing Group will customise each presentation, ensuring that it directly supports the needs and challenges of each client.

Pocket Advisor is designed to provide support on emerging issues, new challenges and leading trends. For a fixed annual fee, clients can expect to rely on Clarke Publishing Group for rapid feedback, benchmarking, research, and advice to guide decision-making.

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Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced a partnership with Laerdal Medical. Under the deal, Lippincott’s print and online nursing content will be integrated with Laerdal’s state-of-the-art simulators and superior simulation programmes.

Practicing nurses and nursing students will now gain access to real-world clinical simulation packages that will advance their technical skills and critical thinking abilities. The Lippincott/Laerdal simulators will enable nursing students to experience real-world scenarios that correspond to their nursing courses, strengthen skills, and build critical thinking competencies. Practicing nurses will reinforce their knowledge base with clinical scenarios that correspond with their specialty.

The first product will be a Medical-Surgical Nursing simulation package that provides clinical scenarios using web-based content from the 12th edition of Brunner & Suddarth’s Textbook of Medical–Surgical Nursing; Lippincott’s Nursing Advisor, an online reference program with more than 2100 evidence-based, quick access entries on diseases, diagnostic tests, drugs, treatments, and nursing care plans; and Lippincott’s Procedures and Skills, an online program with more than 900 step-by-step, evidence-based nursing procedures and skills and over 1200 full colour images and videos.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that Micromedex 2.0, the new web-based version of its market-leading clinical information system, is now available to current and new customers. Micromedex 2.0 gives clinicians direct web and mobile access to Micromedex content through a new user interface that combines enhanced search with user-based interface design to simplify and enhance the way they use referential information.

Pharmacists, nurses, and physicians in more than 3,500 hospitals in 83 countries use Micromedex for evidence-based information on drugs, disease management, toxicology, neonatal dosing, and alternative medicines as well as patient education material. Micromedex 2.0 was designed to help clinicians make better use of this wealth of information. New features include an interface based on clinician workflow patterns, enhanced search capabilities, special tabs for high-usage tools, and compatibility with iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry smartphones, and other mobile devices.

New search functionality allows for multi-term search, predictive text, synonyms and suggestions for alternate spellings. Highly used features — such as dosing calculators, Trissel’s 2 IV compatibility, drug identification, and drug interaction checking — have been pulled into separate tabs so they can be accessed and used quickly. Micromedex 2.0 also simplifies how clinicians see results. The new 360-degree view of results provides a complete picture of all available information about a drug or condition on a single screen — including drug summaries, images, consults, comparative efficacy information, labeled and off-label indications, treatment options, and more.

The Micromedex 2.0 is available at no additional charge for existing Micromedex customers.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that West Georgia Health System (WGHS) has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, to automate the creation, deployment and maintenance of order sets solutions at West Georgia Medical Center. The 276-bed West Georgia Medical Center has been serving the citizens of LaGrange and Troup counties for more than 60 years and is one of only 211 designated rural referral centers in the nation.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical’s clinician-designed technology platform, ProVation Order Sets offer automatic linking to the superior clinical decision support content of UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 360,000 clinicians.

UpToDate covers more than 7,700 topics in 15 medical specialties and includes more than 80,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 260,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offer the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets feature vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Mobile medical references provider Skyscape, US, has launched a mobile clinical decision application on the Google Android operating system. Skyscape’s medical resources are now available on most smart phone devices, allowing medical professionals to easily download the latest medical information.

The technology produced by Skyscape gives medical practitioners access to up-to-date clinical information on their mobile devices, allowing them to spend more time treating patients and less time rummaging through volumes of research. The application also allows them to treat patients in a variety of settings and locations, without being tied to a computer. With the Android operating system, all of the medical information needed to quickly and accurately diagnose and treat a patient is available on the same mobile device.

With the expansion of the Skyscape system onto the Android operating system, Skyscape claims to have become the first mobile clinical decision support provider to offer its application on all major mobile carriers. In addition to their current iPhone enabled application, the Skyscape programme will now be available on a number of Android OS enabled phones, including the HTC Touch, the Zii Trinity, Samsung Behold, G2, G3, G4, MyTouch, and DROID.

Widespread access to up-to-the-minute medical information is transforming the way physicians are able to treat patients around the globe. Wireless handheld devices such as Blackberry, iPhone and PDA are being projected as an ideal platform for mobile learning and reference, particularly in medical education and practice. Earlier last month, US-based healthcare knowledge management solutions provider Unbound Medicine announced the launch of Evidence Central, an integrated evidence-based solution, with content from its partner, Wiley-Blackwell, the STM and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Evidence Central supports effective medical practice through delivery of the latest research and guidelines to mobile devices and the web.

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STM and scholarly publisher Wiley-Blackwell, US, has announced that The Cochrane Collaboration will be renewing its license with India. Representatives of Wiley-Blackwell and the Indian Council of Medical Research will meet on January 27, 2010, to formalise the modalities of this arrangement.

This national license will enable about 60 million internet users gain access to The Cochrane Library’s internationally renowned collection of healthcare databases. This includes gold-standard Cochrane Systematic Reviews, which help clinicians and consumers make decisions about what treatments are best for their patients.

The Cochrane Library contains healthcare information, including Systematic Reviews from The Cochrane Collaboration. These Reviews bring together research on the effects of healthcare and are considered the gold standard for determining the relative effectiveness of different interventions.

The Cochrane Collaboration is a UK registered international charity and claims to be the world's leading producer of systematic Reviews. It has been demonstrated that Cochrane Systematic Reviews are of comparable or better quality and are updated more often than the Reviews published in print journals.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced the acquisition of Discovery Logic, Inc, a provider of customisable analytics and decision support solutions for scientific research. Effective immediately, the company is part of the Healthcare & Science business of Thomson Reuters. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The acquisition of Discovery Logic is expected to enhance current research analytics offerings and provide increased decision support and workflow solutions to academic, government, non-profit and commercial professionals. Key assets and benefits which Discovery Logic will bring to Healthcare & Science's Scientific & Scholarly Research group include ScienceWire, a customisable and proprietary software and database platform; complementary capabilities in analytics, data management and value-added services; experienced management team; and a successful track record of deploying decision support systems.

Discovery Logic is a provider of systems, data and analytics for real-time portfolio management, decision support, outcomes tracking and information visualisation. The company provides a unique software, data and analytics for relating people, organisations, ideas, grants, inventions, patents, publications and products worldwide.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has released a Spanish-language full text, point-of-care tool, Enfermería Al Día, for nurses and other healthcare professionals. Enfermería Al Día provides Spanish-speaking nurses, nurse administrators, nursing students, nurse faculty, and hospital librarians worldwide with access to relevant evidence-based clinical information resources at the point-of-care. Enfermería Al Día enables users to improve the consistency of care and ensure that the latest guidelines and medical alerts are known by the entire nursing staff.

Enfermería Al Día offers the best available and most recent clinical evidence from thousands of full text documents covering areas such as conditions & diseases, patient education resources and the latest medical news. This point-of-care tool includes more than 2,200 evidence-based care sheets; evidence-based summaries on key topics incorporating the best available evidence through rigorous systematic surveillance and quick lessons; and clinically-organised nursing overviews that are designed to map the nursing work flow. More than 3,000 Spanish education patient education handouts (in Spanish & English) are also available to educate patients on their conditions.

This database adds to EBSCO’s collection of Spanish resources for the medical market. Enfermería Al Día also allows for integrated searching of a user’s CINAHL and MEDLINE making it a valuable point-of-care resource for practicing nurses.

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Healthcare knowledge management solutions provider Unbound Medicine, US, has announced the launch of Evidence Central, an integrated evidence-based solution, with content from its partner, Wiley-Blackwell, the STM and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, Inc, US. Evidence Central supports effective medical practice through delivery of the latest research and guidelines to mobile devices and the web.

Evidence Central is designed to answer evidence-based questions and keep clinicians up to date by delivering the latest scientific research and literature on a daily basis. It includes up-to-date review abstracts of therapeutic interventions in Cochrane Abstracts, clinical guidelines and supporting summaries in Evidence-Based Medicine Guidelines, daily relevant evidence reviews in EE+ POEMs (Patient-Oriented Evidence that Matters from Essential Evidence Plus), and literature citations, abstracts, and links to full text in MEDLINE Journals. Powered by the Unbound Platform, this clinically-useful information is easily accessible on the web or mobile device platforms including iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, and Palm.

Clinicians can search Cochrane Abstracts summaries detailing the validity of research findings on a medical topic, then use Cross Links to connect to clinical guidelines and supporting information, including images and videos. Unbound Medicine’s MEDLINE Journals feature connects these entries to journal abstracts and provides alerts for new journal articles as they are published. Daily EE+ POEMs are organised for easy application in practice and are available in an archive for future reference.

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International STM and scholarly publisher Wiley-Blackwell, US, has announced the launch of Essential Evidence, a new product added to its online, evidence-based content resource Essential Evidence Plus. Synthesised from timely and late-breaking clinical evidence derived from the world's most respected medical authorities, this topic-oriented clinical resource tool is projected to help clinicians to more effectively make diagnoses, chart treatment plans, and determine prognoses.

Essential Evidence is available exclusively with a subscription to Essential Evidence Plus, and is accessible through the web or via handheld computer (Pocket PC or Palm OS). The product features about 700 structured medical topics at launch with approximately 100 more in development. All topics are highly integrated and hyperlinked to content and tools including Cochrane Reviews, literature summaries (Daily POEMs), decision support tools, evidence-based guidelines, and interactive diagnostic test calculators.

Topics covered in Essential Evidence are written by leading researchers and peer-reviewed by medical experts. These experts evaluate clinical findings in the medical literature and summarise this information to provide clinicians with evidence-based data essential to making informed point-of-care decisions. Essential Evidence facilitates quick retrieval of the latest evidence that guides patient care decisions and includes a ‘Bottom Line’ feature highlighting the most important findings in each section.

All content includes a ‘strength of evidence’ rating for each recommendation that helps practitioners know which recommendations are most likely to improve health outcomes. Summary tables for at-a-glance information, algorithms for problem solving, and an extensive image library are also included to optimise patient care.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced an agreement with Zynx Health, a subsidiary of Hearst Corporation, US. Institutions currently using point-of-care resources from EBSCO and Zynx Health are expected to benefit from this new deal. The agreement gives healthcare providers integrated access to their evidence-based resources, resulting in quicker retrieval of relevant and current information and improved quality care. This expanded integration option offers consolidated access to current and consistent evidence-based information to all users in the clinical workflow.

In April 2009 an agreement was signed allowing mutual customers to access DynaMed clinical summaries via Zynx Health evidence pages. This new expanded agreement provides customers of ZynxOrder, ZynxEvidence and ZynxCare with direct links to their EBSCO point-of-care resources, providing the convenience of a single point of entry to multiple evidence-based resources for a clinical topic. The additional evidence resources available through Zynx Health evidence pages include EBSCO’s DynaMed, Nursing Reference Center, Rehabilitation Reference Center and Patient Education Reference Center.

The integration of Zynx Health and EBSCO resources maximises the impact of referential content by consolidating access to multiple evidence sources, providing relevant information to all users in the clinical workflow, including doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced a new online resource centre for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) updates and initiatives, accessible via Elsevier’s ClinicalDecisionSupport.com site, or by going to www.clinicaldecisionsupport.com/ARRA. The resource centre and the accompanying blog seek to provide users with updates on ARRA progress and actions, as well as commentary on emerging trends and issues from Elsevier executives Dr. Jonathan Teich, Michelle Troseth and Swati Abbott.

Meaningful clinical decision support (CDS) is projected as a key tenet of healthcare reform and ARRA goals for quality improvement. Designed to assist physicians and other care providers with decisions at the point-of-care, CDS systems assimilate data on a variety of conditions and diagnoses and can flag potential issues. These include unsafe medication interactions that may end up being harmful to patients as well as costly to the entire healthcare system.

Elsevier has been operating in the CDS industry for many years now. Its Consult Suite (i.e., First Consult, MD Consult, Nursing Consult) and Gold Standard/Elsevier drug information products make knowledge accessible via the EHR. The aim is to help physicians, nurses and pharmacists make better clinical decisions within the workflow and at the point of care. Elsevier’s CPM Resource Center (CPMRC) provides a framework including integrated evidence-based interdisciplinary content and transformational services at the point of care. In addition, through MEDai, Elsevier seeks to deliver a patient-specific, real-time clinical surveillance solution driven by predictive analytics to identify a patient’s risk for re-admission and hospital-acquired infection while the patient is still in the hospital.

Elsevier’s blog is launching with introductory postings from Troseth, Executive Vice President and Chief Professional Practice Officer, CPMRC, and Abbott, President of MEDai. Troseth’s first blog post discusses the ‘meaningful use’ matrix and addresses considerations for healthcare leaders and organisations today, while Abbott’s entry highlights common ailments and some possible solutions for the healthcare system, especially with regard to technology.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that the physician-members of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, will receive free access to MD Consult (www.mdconsult.com), its electronic clinical decision support (CDS) tool. The move is part of Elsevier’s ‘All You Need to Make a Difference’ campaign. MSF had bagged the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.

Elsevier will donate a free subscription to MSF for each annual individual MD Consult subscription purchased between November 16 and December 18, 2009. Based on its projections, Elsevier estimates that the month-long campaign could provide 400 subscriptions to MSF's volunteer physicians. Based on average monthly sales, Elsevier estimates that the licenses donated to MSF's volunteer physicians could be worth as much as $140,000.

MD Consult is expected to help volunteer physicians diagnose and treat conditions associated with armed conflict, malnutrition, natural disasters and lack of access to care, and other epidemics. With a world population of close to seven billion people, some 32.9 million have HIV/AIDS, 13.7 million have tuberculosis and 247 million have malaria, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's Global Health Facts.

MSF aid workers operate programmes in more than 60 countries. Elsevier, which has 7,000 employees working in more than 70 offices worldwide, has various partnerships with global science and health communities across the word. According to Elsevier estimates, clinicians in more than 139 countries use its CDS tools.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Tufts Medical Center has selected ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, to automate the creation, maintenance and system-wide deployment of evidence-based order sets. Tufts Medical Center, a 451-bed academic medical center, will also serve as a reference site for the electronic order set solution.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical’s clinician-designed technology platform, ProVation Order Sets offer automatic linking to the clinical decision support content of UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 360,000 physicians.

UpToDate covers more than 7,700 topics in 14 medical specialties and includes more than 80,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 260,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors. In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offer the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets feature vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the launch of MD Consult Mobile. Optimised for iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphone devices, MD Consult Mobile allows clinicians to consult the same MD Consult content available from a laptop or desktop computer. Physicians of any specialty will now be able to access an entire library of quality medical content on their mobile devices.

MD Consult Mobile provides a new interface that is optimised for a small screen, making an extensive collection of books, journal articles, Clinics, and guidelines easily accessed and read from a mobile device’s web browser. MD Consult Mobile users can browse directly to content via Quick Reference links that cover a growing list of medical topics with pre-organised resources; search books, Clinics, journals/MEDLINE, and practice guidelines; view full-text chapters, journal articles and images of all searchable content; and email content links, to themselves for later review, or to colleagues. The service is available at no additional charge to individual subscribers, as well as end-users at institutions with site license subscriptions.

MD Consult brings leading medical resources together into one integrated online reference tool to help physicians efficiently find answers to pressing clinical questions and make better treatment decisions. A service of Elsevier, it combines leading medical reference books, medical journals, and The Clinics of North America with patient education handouts, drug information, medical news, and more.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that Trinity Health, the fourth largest Catholic health system in the US with 44 hospitals across eight states, will install seven of Elsevier’s online clinical decision support (CDS) solutions. With this initiative, Trinity Health seeks to meet the evolving needs of its thousands of physicians, nurses, pharmacists and allied health professionals for evidence-based clinical content.

Elsevier’s comprehensive, interdisciplinary and integrated suite of CDS solutions selected by Trinity Health includes Clinical Pharmacology, which delivers expert drug information; ToxED 2.0, which facilitates treatment of drug overdose emergencies; First Consult, which provides evidence-based answers at the point of care; MD Consult, which brings leading medical resources together in a single online service; Mosby’s Nursing Consult, which helps nurses find answers to pressing clinical questions; Mosby’s Nursing Skills, which presents nearly 1,000 interactive skills adapted from nursing reference texts; and Mosby’s Index, the nursing and allied health journal abstracts and indexing database. These solutions will be installed in numerous critical access facilities, long term care and ambulatory facilities in California, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan and Ohio.

Elsevier hopes that access to this high-level evidence-based content will better position Trinity Health’s diverse care providers to make informed decisions, coordinate care, engage patients and families and enhance quality, safety and efficiency.

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Healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that Cortland Regional Medical Center (CRMC) has selected ProVation Order Sets, an order set authoring and management solution powered by WK Health’s UpToDate Decision Support. CRMC will use ProVation to automate the creation, maintenance and system-wide deployment of evidence-based order sets.

ProVation Order Sets is claimed to be easily customisable, providing flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. It offers automatic linking to the clinical decision support content of UpToDate – a resource used by an estimated 360,000 physicians.

UpToDate covers more than 7,700 topics in 14 medical specialties and includes more than 80,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 260,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors, according to WK Health.

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Medical information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that SwedishAmerican Health System has selected ProVation Order Sets as the electronic order set solution for its subsidiary, SwedishAmerican Hospital. Nationally recognised for quality and clinical excellence, SwedishAmerican Hospital will use ProVation Order Sets’ innovative technology, workflow tools and UpToDate clinical content and decision support to automate the creation, maintenance and deployment of evidence-based order sets.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customisable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardised care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. Built upon ProVation Medical’s clinician designed technology platform, ProVation Order Sets offer automatic linking to the clinical decision support content of UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 360,000 physicians.

UpToDate covers more than 7,700 topics in 14 medical specialties and includes more than 80,000 pages of text and graphics, as well as links to Medline abstracts, more than 260,000 references and a drug database. Content is continuously reviewed and updated by physician editors and authors.

In addition to integrated links to UpToDate and other trusted sources of medical evidence, ProVation Order Sets offer the flexibility to link additional clinical resources based upon client needs and preferences. Further, to help facilities achieve the highest possible degree of automation, ProVation Order Sets feature vendor-neutral mapping and export capabilities that allow for flexible integration into any facility or vendor EMR or CPOE system.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that Halifax Regional Medical Center has signed a multi-year agreement to use Thomson Reuters Micromedex solutions as its source for evidence-based clinical reference information. Halifax Regional Medical Center is a 206-bed acute-care hospital in Roanoke Rapids, in rural North Carolina.

The Micromedex solutions include evidence-based information on drugs and drug interactions, disease management, toxicology, alternative medicine, and intravenous drug compatibility, as well as patient education resources. By choosing an integrated source for all of its clinical reference needs, Halifax Regional will limit resources required to train staff and eliminate the need to support disparate clinical reference systems.

Micromedex content will provide the hospital with the evidence needed to recommend treatment alternatives while providing options for reducing costs.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that it will showcase the new features it is rolling out for its BrainNavigator research tool at the Society for Neuroscience’s Neuroscience 2009 event in Chicago. Recently adopted by the US’ National Institutes of Health (NIH), BrainNavigator is an online, interactive, 3D software tool that maps images of brain anatomy. It seeks to help neuroscience researchers to save time and improve the quality of their daily research.

BrainNavigator helps locate the position of structures within the brain, similar to a GPS system, making visualisation and communication about scientific findings about the brain easier. After unveiling the prototype version at the Society for Neuroscience’s Neuroscience 2008 tradeshow last November, the version including mouse and rat brains is now available at www.brainnav.com.

The product was developed in collaboration with the Allen Institute for Brain Science and under the editorship of Prof. George Paxinos, Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, Sydney and Charles Watson, Professor of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth and Senior Professorial Research Fellow Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, Sydney. Offering both free and subscription-based content, it is used by NIH and other research institutions. It seeks to offer an easy-to-use online system that allows the institutions to browse, compare and label high-resolution material as well as to create virtual sections from sophisticated 3D models of the brain. Users can also annotate atlas drawings and share their annotations with colleagues.

New features include the ability to export and print 2D and 3D images; ‘Injection Planner’ - a feature that allows users to select a point for injection of an electrode or pharmacological substances via a syringe, and visualise the path for the injection in the 3D model of the brain; and an image overlay function which will allow users to place the atlas drawing over the stained image.

BrainNavigator will be showcased at Elsevier’s booth (#112) at Neuroscience 2009, and hourly demonstrations will be given. Free trials of the product, including new features, will be available beginning November 13, 2009.

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Clinical informatics company Humedica, US, and Anceta, the health care informatics subsidiary of the American Medical Group Association (AMGA), have announced a long-term partnership. Anceta has selected Humedica to be its exclusive partner in the development of its nationwide collaborative data warehouse and robust clinical analytics platform. Humedica and Anceta will showcase some early results from this membership-driven initiative at the ongoing AMGA’s Institute for Quality Leadership (IQL) Annual Conference in San Francisco. The IQL is sponsored by AMGA to improve the quality of care delivered in the US healthcare system through the advancement of knowledge and the education of health care professionals.

Humedica’s next-generation clinical informatics platform is uniquely designed to handle the specific needs of Anceta participants. The Humedica platform integrates clinical, claims, financial and other data to generate a complete and longitudinal view of Anceta members’ patient populations. Additionally, Humedica applies disease-specific clinical classifications and advanced analytics to define appropriate patient cohorts, treatment pathways, outcomes and associated costs, all within a state-of-the-art, HIPAA-compliant, and highly secure environment. Humedica’s timely longitudinal clinical data provides unparalleled clarity into how patient populations are treated, which treatments and procedures are prescribed, and most importantly, the quality, efficacy, and cost of this care.

The Anceta collaborative facilitates comparative analytics and benchmarking through the aggregation of data from participating medical groups into a single standard clinical ontology. Humedica and Anceta help member organisations develop, compare, and share best practices and performance improvement strategies through their unique collaborative programmes.

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Drug and clinical information solutions developer Informed Decisions, LLC, an Elsevier company, has announced that it is providing information about its EMPOWERx e-prescribing solution via the American Medical Association's (AMA) new ePrescribing Learning Center. The new online platform provides physicians with the information and tools they need to make informed decisions about electronic prescribing.

The learning center includes a variety of tools and resources to help physicians. This includes calculators to estimate time savings and eligibility for incentive payments and planning tools to help determine practice readiness for and ease implementation of new technologies.

Currently thousands of physicians have deployed EMPOWERx and hundreds have realised actual savings and improved efficiencies within their practice. The solution grants access to integrated drug information, drug-drug interaction screenings, real-time patient medication histories, up-to-date formulary information and more. Physicians can have point-of-care access to this clinical drug reference, e-prescribing programme and patient care system via wireless and cellular connectivity, as well as the online secure EMPOWERx website.

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Hazelden, a nonprofit organisation, and the Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center (PRC) have announced a partnership to develop a variety of resources for the mental health and addiction treatment industries. These resources, including curricula, books, multimedia tools, and staff-development trainings, will be published under a new ‘Dartmouth PRC–Hazelden’ imprint.

This collaboration between Hazelden and the Dartmouth PRC is the result of the success of a project between Hazelden and Dartmouth Medical School - the 2008 publication of the Co-occurring Disorders Program, the first comprehensive, evidence-based programme for the treatment of non-severe co-occurring disorders. This programme has been adopted by several organisations, including the U.S. Navy and the Adult Mental Health Division of the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

The new joint venture between Hazelden and the Dartmouth PRC will launch with the fall 2009 release of A Guide for Living with PTSD: Perspectives for Professionals and Their Clients, a video on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. Future products will compose a continuum of evidence-based resources for working with those who have a mental health disorder or co-occurring addiction and mental health disorders, including an updated, expanded, and serviceable version of the Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment program, which will feature a new relapse prevention component. These products and trainings will be designed to serve a broad range of professionals, including counselors, social workers, nurses and psychiatrists who work in mental health agencies, the military, treatment centers, corrections departments, state governments, and industry associations.

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Symyx Technologies, Inc., a US-based provider of technologies for R&D, has announced a new release of the Symyx Isentris decision support system. Isentris 3.2 enables scientists to explore, compare and report on information spanning multiple experiments captured in electronic lab notebooks, the Symyx Lab Execution and Analysis (LEA) software suite, laboratory information management systems and other information management systems.

Symyx Isentris is projected as a cross-experiment data access, analysis and reporting tool for any LIMS system - driving better informed decisions in scientific experiments and studies. The latest version supports the ongoing collaboration between Symyx and Thermo Fisher Scientific aimed at integrating Symyx Notebook and Symyx Isentris software with Thermo Scientific’s industry-leading LIMS including Watson LIMS used in DMPK/bioanalytical research.

Isentris 3.2 seeks to significantly extend the current analysis and reporting capabilities of Symyx LEA software. It enables LEA researchers to easily aggregate data from multiple information sources in a single view and to report on chemical structures, images, chromatograms, spectra and XY datasets, all within the Microsoft Excel environment.

With the Isentris software developer kit, R&D organisations can extend existing reporting functionality with cross-experiment analysis and reporting, thereby combining additional information sources into analyses and reports on an experiment-by-experiment or study-by-study basis. Scientists can rapidly validate findings by comparing experimental results. They can improve the design of future experiments through comparisons with past experiments and expect to make better decisions by combining information from disparate sources.

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Custom health communications company StayWell Custom Communications (SCC), a division of MediMedia USA, has announced an exclusive strategic alliance with Self Care Decisions, LLC, a provider of decision-support care guides for consumers via the Internet and mobile applications.

Through this strategic alliance, StayWell Custom Communications will be offering a range of online applications for health care providers and payor organisations designed to guide consumers to the appropriate response to common health care issues. These tools will be offered by SCC in addition to the already impressive collection of solutions currently being used by its hundreds of health care clients. The Self Care Decisions tools, which can be custom branded to the sponsoring client organisation, provide people with decision support and care advice for common health symptoms and minor injuries via the Internet and their handheld devices.

The applications include HouseCalls Symptom Checker, an online decision support and care advice tool; and SymptomMD, an iPhone/iTouch application that puts symptom decision support in a consumer's pocket. The tools provide valuable information to consumers to help them self-manage their own health care, reduce unnecessary office visits, save them time, worry, calls to physicians, and avoid after-hour trips to urgent care facilities.

Clients who use these online tools have the ability to package and brand each solution to their own organisation to make it a totally custom offering. The iPhone/iTouch application can even be programmed to guide consumers to the sponsoring organisation's selected providers for care.

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Information service company EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO), Netherlands, has developed an open source software development kit (SDK) for developing clients and servers for the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI). The SDK will assist content providers in implementing SUSHI – a key requirement for being compliant with Release 3 of the COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) Code of Practice for Journals and Databases.

The SDK includes .Net classes that will facilitate working with COUNTER 3.0 data and SUSHI 1.6 services. Whether the intended solution is a SUSHI client or server, these classes will provide the groundwork to allow developers to focus on the logic rather than implementing the standard. The SDK, which contains documentation, source code, a sample client, and a sample server can be found at http://code.google.com/p/ebscosushisdk/.

SUSHI will be an integral part of EBSCO’s Usage Consolidation module, a new service that is being added to ERM Essentials, the company’s e-resource management system.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that Dallas-based CHRISTUS Health will install five of Elsevier’s online clinical decision support (CDS) solutions to meet the diverse and evolving clinical decision support needs of its physicians, nurses and pharmacists.

CHRISTUS opted for Elsevier’s comprehensive, interdisciplinary and integrated suite of CDS solutions for pharmacy, medicine and nursing. Among the selected solutions are Clinical Pharmacology, which delivers expert drug information; ToxED 2.0, which facilitates treatment of drug overdose emergencies; First Consult, which provides evidence-based answers for the point of care; MD Consult, which brings leading medical resources together in a single online service; and Mosby’s Nursing Consult, which helps nurses find answers to pressing clinical questions.

Elsevier CDS solutions will be installed in 25 Texas hospitals within CHRISTUS Health, which is composed of more than 40 hospitals, inpatient and long-term care facilities, as well as multiple clinics, physician offices and healthcare services. Other factors influencing CHRISTUS’ decision to adopt multiple Elsevier solutions included its need to consolidate resources, save on costs, integrate solutions and allow physicians, nurses and pharmacists to navigate effortlessly between CDS products.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the availability of a new online tool at the Mosby’s Nursing Consult website. The CMS Never Events section is designed to help nurses prevent the 10 ‘Never Events’ identified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in an October 2008 fact sheet. It seeks to help nurses to prevent so-called Never Events or Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) in the quest to improve care quality and maximise hospital reimbursement.

The launch is in response to CMS’ 2008 decision that it would no longer pay for adverse events that could be prevented through the application of specific evidence-based protocols. In addition, CMS does not permit patients to be billed for the cost of these events.

To create CMS Never Events, Elsevier researchers matched each Never Event/HAC with appropriate articles, reports, monographs and studies. The tool covers CMS’ initial list of 10 HACs. This includes foreign objects retained after surgery, air embolism, blood incompatibility, stage III and IV pressure ulcers, falls and trauma, manifestations of poor glycemic control, catheter-associated urinary tract infect ion, vascular catheter associated infection, surgical site infection and deep vein thrombosis /pulmonary embolism.

Nurses who access CMS Never Events to prevent an HAC can review a definition, evidence-based nursing content, books, journals, guidelines, patient education, images and news. Nursing Consult also includes decision-making guidance on six conditions now under review by CMS for inclusion on the HAC list. Among them are delirium, ventilator-associated pneumonia, staphylococcus aureus septicemia, clostridium difficile-associated disease, Legionnaire’s disease and iatrogenic pneumothorax.

Mosby’s suite of online tools, including Mosby’s Nursing Consult with CMS Never Events, Mosby’s Nursing Skills and Mosby’s Index, is used by more than 500 hospitals across the US. CMS Never Events is a component of a suite of professional nursing tools from Elsevier. In addition to Nursing Consult, the suite includes Nursing Skills, which offers training in nearly 1,000 nursing skills and procedures, and Mosby’s Index, a database of close to 3,000 nursing resources.

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Medical information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has unveiled ProVation Care Plans, an innovative software solution that arms nurses, pharmacists, therapists and other caregivers with the actionable evidence they need to effectively enhance practice, improve patient safety and demonstrate compliance with credentialing and regulatory standards. The new offering, which will deliver more than 200 clinical care plans, provides nursing interventions; embedded links to current evidence, performance, measures and quality indicators; vendor-neutral EMR and clinical information system integration; and clinical terms based on standard medical vocabularies.

ProVation Care Plans were built by a team of expert clinicians, in partnership with the experts at Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), an international publisher of nursing information. ProVation Care Plans enable hospitals to make the most informed decisions through point of care access to disease and symptom information, and supporting evidence from Wolters Kluwer Health sources like UpToDate, which reduces the risk for error and liability, helps to establish clinical consensus on standards of care, and improves patient care and safety. Through ProVation Care Plans, clinicians and facilities also have one-click access to the Ovid journals to which they subscribe.

Interdisciplinary care teams can use ProVation Care Plans to customise, modify and maintain care plans to meet the needs of the facility or different patient populations; create educational programmes, procedures and guidelines based on recent evidence; and comply with credentialing and standards for Joint Commission and other regulatory bodies.

ProVation Care Plans are available as a standalone product or in conjunction with ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, the innovative order set development solution that combines ProVation Medical’s award-winning technology platform with UpToDate’s superior clinical decision support content. ProVation Order Sets streamline the delivery of standardized care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance.

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Gold Standard/Elsevier, publisher of medication management solutions, has announced the launch of three MedCounselor consumer drug information modules for pharmacies and health information websites. MedCounselor seeks to educate consumers on how to take medications safely, assist in identifying unknown tablets or capsules, and check for drug interactions. The modules are claimed to be indispensable in helping to increase consumer compliance to their drug regimens and avoid costly and sometimes deadly medication errors.

Developed from Gold Standard/Elsevier's drug information and medication management content for health professionals, MedCounselor looks to provide evidence-based, easily understandable consumer medication information. It also offers a new ‘Toolkit’ which enables better integration with the client’s existing content - clients can integrate searching and/or link to drug information directly from their own websites/applications.

Gold Standard/Elsevier will demonstrate these new MedCounselor modules at the NACDS Pharmacy & Technology Conference, August 8-11, 2009, in Boston, Booth #1166.

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Business information company Thomson Reuters, US, and Discovery Logic, Inc. have announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has chosen Web of Science data to power the NIH electronic Scientific Portfolio Assistant (eSPA). Discovery Logic is a leading provider of systems, data and analytics for real-time portfolio management, decision support, outcomes tracking, and information visualisation.

eSPA is an information technology system designed to assist NIH grants management officials in creating grant portfolios and tracking research outputs and outcomes, including publications and citations. As the prime contractor on this award, Discovery Logic will link Web of Science data to NIH grants, clinical trials, publications, invention reports, patents and other scientific data sources by providing custom software development services, database services and data analytic services.

Web of Science is the world’s largest citation database, providing researchers, administrators, faculty and students access to more than 11,000 actively covered, high impact journals and 110,000 conference proceedings, totaling 45 million documents and more than 1 billion cited references.

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E-Resource Access and Management Services (ERAMS) provider Serials Solutions, US, has announced enhanced reporting for the Serials Solutions 360 Counter e-resource assessment service that allows libraries to better report on cost-per-use and showcase collection development decisions. 360 Counter reports now feature an improved user interface and functionality that allows librarians to build and save reports, share custom reports with colleagues, and create visually dynamic and interactive dashboards.

Serials Solutions 360 Counter reporting enhancements include new user interface with improved icons and simplified navigation, functionality for building and saving custom reports, new report sharing options, new textual and graphical reports, and the ability to export charts and graphs in PDF format.

The 360 Counter reporting enhancements are free to all 360 Counter subscribers.

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Physicians Interactive LLC (PI), the leading digital sales and health marketing partner for life sciences companies, has announced the acquisition of mobile medical references provider Skyscape, US. Skyscape is now a wholly owned subsidiary of PI. Under the acquisition agreement, Skyscape will continue to be led by Sandeep Shah, who will report to Donato Tramuto, vice chairman and CEO of Physicians Interactive Holdings LLC. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The Skyscape acquisition doubles PI's current physician network and adds more than one million health care professionals to the PI database, providing valuable insights into the online behaviour of physicians and other health care providers. The acquisition will allow for the development of new and enhanced decision support tools for health care professionals and expanded product offerings for pharmaceutical, biotech and other life science companies-all on one integrated platform available on multiple technologies.

Skyscape delivers medical content at the point of care through its multiple mobile platforms and broad internet presence. From drug dosing calculators and drug interactions to medical alerts to the latest research and clinical practice guidelines, Skyscape provides up-to-the minute information to enhance patient care. Gold standard content is delivered in partnership with more than 50 of the top medical publishers, associations and major medical institutions. Skyscape's SmartLink technology enables subscribers to customise how they view content and automatically generates 'smart links,' converting hundreds of editions and volumes of medical information into integrated decision tools.

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Health-information provider Healthy Advice Networks, US, has announced the launch of PracticeWire, a wireless broadband technology solution that delivers real-time health content to physicians all day via wall-mounted flat-screen monitors.

Strategically located in the back office, medical news and information is sourced from over 40 peer-reviewed medical journals and news feeds. Digital technology enables customisation at the location level allowing practices to post their own content regarding standards of care, reinforcing Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other regulatory guidelines. The network is fully supported by a companion website for in-depth article reviews.

Healthy Advice Networks delivers patient-education programmes in primary care, cardiology, women's health, pediatric, gastroenterology, urology, dermatology and rheumatology practices. The company is planning to launch another primary care network, as well as several new programmes, targeted to both physicians and patients, in 2010.

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Medhand International, Sweden, a supplier of Doctors reference libraries for mobile platforms, has announced the forthcoming launch of their intuitive iPhone reference book application. The first launch consists of four titles from the Oxford University Press Medical Handbook series - the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine and the Oxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine; and from the Oxford American Handbooks series - the Oxford American Handbook of Clinical Medicine and the Oxford American Handbook of Critical Care. More than 25 Oxford Medical Handbook titles are expected to be launched before year-end.

The intuitive iPhone application is designed for single Oxford Handbooks with the objective of allowing professional users to access precisely the information they need or reference content with a three-click action.

The iPhone application was custom developed by Medhand with the focus on Oxford Medical Handbooks series, allowing physicians to securely access authentic medicine reference from iPhones. It will be applied to a number of titles allowing iPhone and iPod users to access professional information from their handheld platforms.

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Global library cooperative Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC), US, has announced that the WorldCat Mobile pilot, a programme that makes collections from libraries visible through mobile devices, has been extended to Europe. Expanding the pilot to Europe means that now phones in the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, and France will also be operational.

The WorldCat Mobile pilot allows users to search for and find books and other materials available in libraries near them through a Web application they can access from a PDA or smartphone. Based on WorldCat.org, the pilot has already proved a huge success in the US and Canada. Advanced global positioning capabilities found in many smartphones and PDAs make it possible for users to find local library materials, if the library in question has loaded records in WorldCat, no matter where they happen to be.

Created in collaboration with Boopsie, Inc., a US-based provider of software for mobile devices, the WorldCat Mobile pilot is a downloadable application that supports many devices, including Nokia, Blackberry and iPhone. OCLC is currently inviting feedback from European users as to their experiences with the service.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the launch of SciVal Spotlight, a customised web-based tool that offers institutions a multidisciplinary perspective of research performance to evaluate, establish and execute more informed research strategies.

SciVal Spotlight uses a visualisation technique to produce customised maps that provide graphical views of an institution's performance over time and across scientific fields, focusing on specific topical areas. By pinpointing a university's topical strengths and identifying leading researchers and institutions in each area, the tool is designed to help academic decision-makers optimise funding allocations and enhance hiring and collaboration decisions.

Quantifying the overall size of each topical area, the tool allows institutions to understand the significance of their article and market shares and how they rank compared to competitors in those areas. It also assesses article and market growth or decline over the last five years, offering an average rate for each using a two year sliding scale. Additionally, it determines if an institution's work is building upon the most recent discoveries; providing a 'state of the art quotient' by analysing how recent the citations are within its published output.

SciVal Spotlight is based on a detailed model of the current structure of science. The model, covering virtually all of the research being published across the globe, was developed using co-citation analysis of a comprehensive database that includes 6.1 million separate papers published between 2004 and 2008, and another two million of the highly-cited references from these papers.

Leveraging this new model of science, SciVal Spotlight identifies and focuses on the inter-related work being done within an institution which represents the topical areas or 'distinctive competencies' in which it is a leader. It also offers an opportunity to better understand which institutions are true competitors by revealing those that compete within the same research competencies.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing, US, has added more than 500 clinical calculators to DynaMed, an evidence-based clinical decision support resource.

Licensed from MedCalc 3000, these calculators include medical equations, decision support tools, prediction tools, statistics calculators, dose conversion tools and unit conversion tools. Clinical calculators help clinicians to choose the best diagnostic tests and interpret the results as well as provide test characteristics. Calculators also help to determine the likelihood of a diagnosis, estimate a patient's risk for a disease and estimate a given prognosis.

Expanding the content and tools available in DynaMed is an ongoing mission of EBSCO Publishing in order to provide the best available evidence to clinicians at the point-of-care. In the last few years DynaMed has been updated with a new, intuitive interface and expanded coverage to more than 3,000 clinical topics. Resources such as drug information, IDC-9/ICD-10 codes and patient education handouts have also been added. In addition, access to DynaMed content has been extended through partnerships with medical content providers such as LexiComp and Zynx Health.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced results of its SciVal Spotlight Alternative Energy Research Leadership study. Analysing the work of 3,000 research institutions from across the globe, the study identifies the top 25, using a new method for determining leadership.

Highlights of the findings were shared in a recent webcast, 'Research Leadership Redefined… Measuring Performance in a Multidisciplinary Landscape.' Over 1000 academic and government executives, researchers and librarians joined live or viewed the recorded version to learn more about the methodology behind the study which illustrates a new way to identify research leaders based on output in 'distinctive competencies'.

Distinctive competencies (DCs) represent expertise in specific research areas. They reveal the degree to which institutions have constructed multidisciplinary networks within their organisation focused on achieving specific breakthroughs. Indicating that research within the university is not being done in isolated silos, examining output in distinctive competencies offers a more accurate way of determining leadership in a given area than traditional measurement methods.

The SciVal Spotlight Alternative Energy Research Leadership study analyses the alternative energy work of 3,000 research institutions (primary universities) using SciVal Spotlight, Elsevier's new research performance measurement tool which is scheduled for release later this summer. Moving beyond the traditional method of measuring research output by journal count, the SciVal Spotlight tool is built on a more detailed model of the current structure of science. The model, covering almost all of the science being conducted across the globe, was developed using co-citation analysis of a comprehensive database including 5.6 million separate papers published between 2003 and 2007 and another 2 million of the heavily cited reference works within these papers.

Based on the top 50 institutions globally, the study also analyses country output in the three main alternative energy sub-topics or topic groups including solar/photovoltaic, fuel cells and environmentally-related areas (such as efficiency, renewable energy, biomass, wind, etc.).

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Healthcare publisher The BMJ Group, UK, recently announced the launch of a service that allows health professionals across the world to get on-the-spot access to expert opinion, guidelines and the latest clinical evidence on their mobile phone. This service is being made available at no extra cost to all subscribers of Best Practice, a new online decision support tool. Best Practice is designed to help practitioners, medical students and researchers find and effectively use appropriate medical information. Built specifically for point-of-care use, it seeks to help meet the real, diverse and evolving information challenges that health professionals face every day, whether in the surgery, hospital or out in the community.

This facility has been made possible through a joint agreement with Mobile IQ for the latter's mobile publishing platform, Fabric. The agreement allows access to any content contained in Best Practice on any mobile device, and the information is fully searchable to ensure easy navigation of the material. Fabric also supports links between mobile devices and e-mails to enable physicians who find an interesting article whilst on the phone can e-mail it to themselves and read it later at their desk.

Best Practice covers 10,000 diagnoses and all content is written and peer reviewed by specialists. It provides prescribing information, guideline summaries and expert opinion together with advice on symptom evaluation, test ordering and treatment strategies.

Best Practice Mobile is available on mobile phone at http://bp.bmjgroup.mobi or online at http://bestpractice.bmj.com/best-practice/marketing/best-practice-mobile.html

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Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that its ProVation Medical procedure documentation and coding software allows users to transition to the new ICD-10 code set with minimal expense, training or disruption of workflow. The product, which is seen to answer the call for healthcare technology vendors to play a proactive role in the switch to ICD-10, is claimed to be ready to accommodate the expanded code sets. Also, its implementation and training teams are prepared to support client organisations throughout the transition process.

After originally proposing a 2011 deadline, the US' Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has set a 2013 compliance deadline for the adoption of ICD-10 by domestic healthcare organisations. Despite the two-year reprieve, healthcare organisations are already putting together their transition budgets and plans, a critical element of which is working with their technology vendors to ensure software and systems are ready for the switch.

According to a recent survey by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, 55 percent of hospital CIOs said they expected vendor readiness and cooperation to be one of the top hurdles in achieving ICD-10 compliance. Yet, 72 percent did not know if their vendors would include ICD-10 in annual software upgrades, and 60 percent said their vendors had not alerted them to implementation timelines.

ProVation seeks to replace dictation/transcription and streamline the coding and billing process. With deep medical content, it allows clinicians to quickly and completely document medical procedures and apply the appropriate CPT and ICD codes, as well as CCI edits, according to the company. ProVation is currently used by thousands of clinicians at more than 600 hospitals and ambulatory surgery centres, in specialties including cardiology, ENT, gastroenterology, general surgery, gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, pain management, plastic surgery, pulmonology and urology.

The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) has announced that it will incorporate NexCura Cancer Profiler Tools from Thomson Reuters into its website. The 20 online tools will provide cancer patients with critical, customised information about their treatment options.

The tools were created using patented technology that guides users through a step-by-step questionnaire to match the patient's diagnosis, diagnostic results, and disease stage with the relevant treatment options. All information provided by the NexCura Cancer Profiler Tools is peer-reviewed.

NFCR offers the NexCura Cancer Profiler under the Treatment Decision Tools section of its website (http://www.nfcr.org/patientsupport.com). The NexCura Cancer Profiler claims to be the only online service generating comprehensive treatment information that is personalised for specific diagnoses and clinical status. The customised information enables patients to better communicate with their doctors and care teams and, through education, encourages the patient to play a more proactive role in treatment decisions.