Information services provider Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced that a study on the value of library and information services in patient care found UpToDate was the most used clinical decision support resource, second only to research studies. WK Health made the announcement at 'MLA '13, the 2013 Annual Meeting and Exhibition of the Medical Library Association.
The study, titled 'The value of library and information services in patient care: results of a multisite study', was published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) and was conducted by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Over 16,000 clinicians at 56 library sites serving 118 hospitals in urban and rural areas were asked to report on a recent incident in which they had sought information for patient care. The study found that, following research studies, UpToDate was the clinical decision support (CDS) resource used most by physicians and residents, while online journals (#1) and Ovid MEDLINE (#8) ranked in the top 10 list of resources. UpToDate was used significantly more than all other CDS tools listed among the 20 choices available.
The study is seen to complement the growing medical literature demonstrating that UpToDate contributes to increased time savings, lower mortality rates as well as the avoidance of adverse events including misdiagnosis, adverse drug reactions, medication errors and ordering of unneeded tests. To read the study, click here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3543128/.
To learn more about how UpToDate is helping medical librarians around the world, please visit the Wolters Kluwer Health booth # 205 at the 2013 Annual Meeting and Exhibition of the Medical Library Association (MLA '13), held May 3-8, 2013 in Boston, MA.
