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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