As a general internal medicine physician practicing primary care in Madison, Wisconsin, for more than 15 years, the COVID-19 pandemic is easily the biggest single medical event of my clinical career to date. Overnight, health care has been turned upside down by a new virus presenting in diverse ways in different patients. Clinical care is being provided with new precautions and through new modalities including telehealth and triage for in-person visits. The deluge of medical and public health data and research and recommendations coming out over the last few months is astounding. It has been a major challenge for front line clinicians to sort through the massive amount of information and use ever-changing updates from trusted sources (such as individual health systems, county and state health departments, the CDC, WHO and other government sources, trusted publishers and medical expert groups) to answer the question, “What should I do right now for the patient in front of me?”
As Chief Medical Officer for Clinical Decision Support at EBSCO Information Services, I am lucky to have been part of an effort that brought together a task force of clinical, research, technology and information professionals to create EBSCO’s COVID-19 Information Portal. The portal, released free to the public at the end of March, helps researchers, library & information professionals and healthcare professionals find and share a very broad set of information about COVID-19. We are introducing new Clinical Care content, which take the information that is specifically relevant to clinicians and health care professionals and streamlines the navigation and search results for quick answers to pressing questions. Our goal is to provide easy and free access to clinicians looking for aggregated and searchable information from credible resources newly developed by EBSCO on COVID-19 topics, as well as content from other trusted public and private open source content providers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to rethink so much about how we practice medicine and how we consume and incorporate new clinical information into clinical practice.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to rethink so much about how we practice medicine and how we consume and incorporate new clinical information into clinical practice.
The clinical content in the COVID-19 Information Portal includes:
- Daily electronic feeds from respected medical journals and news sources from the U.S. and around the world
- Searchable clinical resources including extensive clinical reference material, clinical pathways, calculators, patient education, nursing skills, systematic reviews and trial results
- Extensive EBSCO clinical content made free during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Clinical content from trusted publishers and content providers
- Interactive functionality for users to suggest and upload additional resources
EBSCO has long delivered evidence-based clinical content for the research community along with point-of-care clinical reference and clinical decision support. With these resources, we aim to build on this expertise and help cut down on the noise and information overload for clinicians by curating and delivering trusted clinical resources in an efficient way.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to rethink so much about how we practice medicine and how we consume and incorporate new clinical information into clinical practice. While so much about COVID-19 has been terribly difficult, we are also learning lessons and gaining new tools to help us stay current with evidence-based medicine and adapt to the changing needs of our patients. Clinical decision support tools are one part of the solution that will outlast this pandemic and help us be a better care for our patients.
