Wolters Kluwer and Ariadne Labs have announced the celebration of their 10-year partnership to provide free UpToDate access to health providers in resource-limited settings through the Better Evidence Program. Since 2009, Wolters Kluwer has donated free UpToDate subscriptions to over 20,000 healthcare professionals in over 145 countries, many of whom had no prior access to online resources.
Clinicians around the world are challenged to provide the right diagnoses, treatments, and clinical guidance to every patient in their care. Tools such as UpToDate, an evidence-based clinical resource, ensure clinicians can find and integrate the latest evidence; however, clinicians in resource-limited settings often lack access to such tools, making the challenges they face even greater.
Better Evidence is a program of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health system innovation at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Better Evidence tests and spreads digital tools for providers to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of care.
Clinicians who have benefited from the program attest to the impact UpToDate has had on their ability to deliver the best possible care for patients. One clinician in South Africa described how the resource helped them to prevent further infections during an outbreak of chickenpox in their maternity ward, while a clinician in Tanzania credits UpToDate with providing the information needed to treat an infant’s suspected heart problem without access to diagnostic equipment.
To further expand the reach of the program, in 2019 Ariadne Labs launched the Better Evidence for Training in sub-Saharan African medical schools and their affiliated training facilities. Building on a pilot study that showed the utility of providing a free resource to medical students and faculty in Rwanda, the program provides institutional access to UpToDate. In the program’s first year, 21 training facilities in six countries received UpToDate access, and 650 students and faculty were trained to use the clinical decision support resource. For reference, all the top medical schools in the US provide UpToDate for their students and faculty.
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