The Australian state of Queensland through Queensland Health has continued its partnership with EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) with a new contract to deliver and manage its state-wide online clinical knowledge portal, the Clinical Knowledge Network (CKN). EBSCO will provide portal development, hosting, and management; search and access tools; remote access; 24-hour user support; user training; and management and other value-added services to deliver a uniquely comprehensive collection of online information resources from the world’s top health publishers. The new contract is for nine years, commencing 1 July 2024, and expands the existing ten-year relationship between the two organisations to deliver the CKN portal.
Since its launch in 2001, CKN has provided Queensland Health’s approximately 80,000 clinicians with a world class knowledge base supporting clinical decision-making at the point of care. Queensland Health is the third largest public health system in Australia, working across a network of 16 regional and metropolitan Hospital and Health Services (HHS) and the Queensland Ambulance Service. Queensland Health serves a state population of almost 5.6M people across an area seven times the size of Great Britain.
CKN provides Queensland Health’s clinicians with multiple leading clinical decision support tools, comprehensive medicines resources, extensive clinical guidelines and standards, and a wide range of high-quality online journals, books and research databases. The first year of the new contract will not only see a continuation of all existing information resources but an expansion of research content from key medical publishers.
Queensland Health’s Manager of Clinical Knowledge Resources, Richard Sayers, says the decision to award the new contract to EBSCO will deliver many benefits for CKN and the clinicians it serves. These benefits include ongoing continuity of service and the capacity to offer more and better content and services. “CKN in its current form, supplied by EBSCO, is now in its tenth year and usage continues to grow. CKN is integral to so much of what happens across the spectrum of clinical services. Our partnership with EBSCO has been pivotal to the success of CKN over the past decade. Working together we have created a truly enviable clinical knowledge service as a result. Returning to the market, Queensland Health was determined to drive further value for money and innovation. With EBSCO continuing as our strategic partner for the next nine years, we are confident that CKN will continue to grow and innovate as a service – ultimately supporting Queensland Health’s clinicians to deliver the best possible patient outcomes.”
EBSCO’s Contracts and Commercial Support Director, Linda Shaw, says that the continuation of the relationship demonstrates the understanding and alignment of core values between the organisations. “Choosing EBSCO for the next phase of CKN’s growth and development is tremendous validation of the work and investment that we’ve made to help CKN achieve its objective to deliver a world class evidence base to clinicians wherever they are in the state. We’re equally proud and excited to continue working with Queensland Health to deliver exceptional management expertise in support of achieving those aims.”
About Clinical Knowledge Network
The Clinical Knowledge Network (CKN) is Queensland Health’s (QH) online clinical knowledge service and functions as the state-wide medical, nursing, pharmacy and allied health sciences online library, supporting the Department of Health, 16 Hospital and Health Services, the Queensland Ambulance Service, and the Queensland Poisons Information Centre. CKN provides QH clinicians with access to the state’s most extensive and authoritative collection of evidence-based clinical knowledge resources, directly supporting clinical decision-making and patient care, enhanced patient safety, clinical improvement and innovation, medical research, and staff training programs.
About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is a leading provider of online research content and search technologies serving academic, school and public libraries; healthcare and medical institutions; corporations; and government agencies around the world. EBSCO’s Clinical Decisions suite of products are designed to improve patient care by providing healthcare professionals with the most current, evidence-based answers to clinical questions as they arise at the point of care. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: www.ebsco.com
